


skate the platform edge (but i won't catch you when you fall)

by skree



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: April Showers, M/M, RageHappy, a story of lust and love on ice, also known as the incredibly overdue.., figureskating AU, joelay - Freeform, let's go with that shall we?, lunacross - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-15
Updated: 2014-09-21
Packaged: 2018-01-19 13:29:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 46,464
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1471549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skree/pseuds/skree
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ray has no idea who the guy is, the one that lounges in the metal stands of his local rink, hidden behind a baseball cap and a newspaper (or the light of his iPhone), but when he hears the motherfucker snickering after he takes a spectacular spill on the ice, he figures he must not know who Ray is, either. But hey, if it lets him take a break from the pressure of preparing for the Championships, Ray's all too happy to find someone to laugh with.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. begin with a flourish, finish with a bang

“Again.”

The music had stopped, his blades had skidded to a halt for what felt like the trillionth time in the past hour, and Ray Narvaez Jr. was steaming over ice.

“You fucking  _serious_?”

The vaguely smug expression that flickered over Burnie’s face was certainly telling, and Ray might as well have listened the first time and prevented his temper from spiking.

“Perfectly, which is more than can be said for you, by the way. Do it again.”

So he grit his teeth, flipped his coach off when he caught the sneer ghosting over the man’s features, and kicked off again.

In some ways, it was a little like fate. Ever since he was a little kid, he’d been attached to the ice ever since his mother took him out for the first time on the most famous rink in New York. Sure, he’d slid around on his ass quite a lot for the first – okay, for  _most_ of his time spent on it, but given the glimmering colors and smiling faces that proved to be in abundance whenever he visited the rink. Ray decided to make figureskating his thing since he lifted himself onto two legs after the first time he fell.

The bruises were a huge part of it, of course. He had friends through his days in public school that played on all kinds of sports teams – soccer, initially, which blossomed into the black eyes and cauliflower ears of wrestling, football, and rugby when they transitioned to high school – but he was the only one that came in boasting bruises year-round. Ray didn’t care much for making a big deal of his sport of choice, because he made skating his outlet and did it more or less for the stress relief, but he would’ve been lying if he said he didn’t live for the jaws that fell to the floor when the unassuming gamer from Manhattan did better splits than the girls in his class. Oh, yeah, that part was a lot of fun.

Once he’d grown older, his coach (a term used pretty loosely, since the only competitive business Ray dabbled in was the local stuff hosted by the rinks nearby) had suggested to his parents that he look into competing in state tournaments. States led to amateur nationals, and the exhilaration of the competition Ray found there was really quite unparalleled. Burnie was strict, but he reminded him frequently that he saw a lot of potential in Ray that he didn’t want to go to waste. Olympic-caliber potential, maybe, and that was enough to make anyone start seeing through rose-colored glasses at the drop of a hat.

So here he was, 24 and just barely out of his batty roller coaster ride to the top of the amateur division, and just as soon as he made sure he hadn’t derailed along the way, Burnie was singing to the tune of the U.S. Figureskating Championships. Ray had sat in his office utterly dumbfounded at the notion for about an hour, but one of Burnie’s most charming (and most infuriating for those he coached, Ray asserted) traits was his persuasiveness. He painted big, seductive portraits of success, and regardless of the cogency from a purely objective standpoint, the sweet talking that won his parents over fairly frequently nabbed Ray’s attention, too.

Not a week later, he’d put 30 hours into practicing his new routine, and he certainly had his doubts about being able to carry on through this kind of madness.

His support network of choice consisted of a few friends close to home – home being video games, since he’d moved to Austin to train with Burnie, and video games being a stable job at one of the country’s biggest entertainment retailers that  _wasn’t_  pornography – to whom he owed his soul, a few limbs, and probably a great deal of his bone marrow. They’d pulled him through a lot and kept him grounded, and if it wasn’t for Michael, who dual-wielded the titles of best friend and short-tempered sales associate co-worker with ease, he’d probably have sold himself to a much less worthy cause long ago.

This had been Ray’s stable routine for six months; he was perfectly content in dividing his time amongst Burnie, his boss, and his Xbox, with a few errant hours to beat Michael’s ass in most of the games on his shelf when he didn’t have time to wait for matchmaking, plus sleep whenever he got around to it. But with the championship around the corner, Burnie had ramped up practice hours to insane heights, which was no doubt for good reason, but the hours he was pouring into his form every week were bordering insane.

He was tired, and Burnie knew it, but they both kept pushing and pushing. For all the hell he gave his coach for the hell he’d choked down his pride and received from the bastard, they both knew how very worth it the practice was in the end. Ray would never admit to a streak of perfectionism that only seemed to be on a perpetually steady trajectory skyward, and Burnie was thrilled to assume the whip-cracking associated with such a trait, but once he did a routine in front of an audience and a panel of judges that he was legitimately prepared for and satisfied with, the world was his.

But national championships were a new can of worms in their entirety, and the months evolved from grueling to unbearable pretty rapidly once they started the two-month countdown. And with Ray’s muscles burning and Burnie’s voice rising, those two months were going to last forever.

That afternoon had been more or less the final straw for Ray, though, and by the time he left the rink and sped off on his bike with their exchanged jabs in mind, he was glowering. He’d been on the ice per Burnie’s request (a word he scoffed at in the beginning, and figured it’d be warped into more of a demand) for long hours from early in the morning through the evening during the weekend to account for his work schedule during the week. By the time he’d get home, he hardly had time to trudge through the front door before he flopped over on the nearest piece of furniture and practically fell comatose from sheer exhaustion.

He’d figured he had a problem when he was falling asleep with his controller in hand. Time management, Burnie would say. Yeah, right.

Today was different, however, because when Ray left the parking lot, he was too irate to face his Xbox in good conscience, and was filled to the brim with energy. So rather than heading in the direction of his apartment, he made the split-second decision while waiting at an intersection to take off for a different rink.

He’d learned a long time ago that skating circuits was a great way to blow off steam, so he’d regularly tug his headphones over his head, tune out the shrieks of whatever reality was eating at him, and hand himself over to the predictability of the ice for a few hours. He was pretty sure Burnie thought it was nothing more than meaningless tedium, but it was therapeutic for Ray, in a way. Darting around couples and kids clutching tightly to the hand of a parent was relaxing, refreshing – like he was one of them, like he didn’t have to put on a show for once. And the feeling of the rink beneath his blades was just wind beneath his wings, whether or not he was practicing his precarious earth-bound (or perhaps ice-bound?) acrobatics.

When he reached the rink he’d haphazardly searched on his phone mid-route (and for which he’d successfully dodged several angry drivers, he noted in triumph), he was relieved to make it inside without complications, and discovered the rink wouldn’t close for another few hours. Thank god.

He laced up his skates in no time, hitting the ice practically as soon as he’d made it through the door. His lap counts usually stacked in tens, and when he was in a bad mood, it usually took forty for his mind to go blank. The first ten were focused on his legs, pushing him faster to pump out one after the other, and once he got that rhythm set, his skates were more or less on autopilot. The farther he went, the steadier his pace became; he’d usually poured his anger into the momentum at the beginning to fuel his movements, but the relief that washed over him alongside skating and breathing was like reaching nirvana, the state where the clock stopped ticking, where the periphery drew lines and the place where all he could see was what was clearly in front of him.

Before too long, he looked up from the patterns he’d been slowly but surely etching into the thin frozen layer beneath him to see that most of the visiting skaters had left the rink. He let out a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding, watched the vapor leave his lungs and condense, and glided to a stop.

Well, he would’ve called it gliding if his legs hadn’t opted to turn to gelatin and ended up depositing him rather ungracefully on the ice. He collapsed against the cold surface with a groan, shifting his leg to move his weight off of another bruise on his hip, and he decided in that moment he’d just lie there until he summoned the energy to pick himself up to start again.

But when he heard a chuckle that wasn’t stifled in the slightest from the seats beyond the rail to his left, the energy came flooding back full-force, and his temper was back and prepared to destroy like a tornado in Kansas.

He rose to his feet and whirled around to face the stands, rows of metallic gridlines that he’d presumed empty, to see a lone man in the third row aisle seat not even bothering to hide a sneer beneath a baseball cap. Classy.

Ray put his hands on his hips and stood full-height – which wasn’t very assuming, he’d admit, but his pride was aching and he had to defend the castle somehow – before raising both his eyebrows and shooting a terse acknowledgement of the same caliber right back at the smirking douchebag. He’d been there before, he remembered vaguely, and he seemed familiar, but neither had ever acknowledged the other. Until today, that is.

“The fuck are you laughing at?”

No doilies on that wringer, but hey, Ray Narvaez Jr. wasn’t an irreverent son of a bitch. Well, he didn’t name-call, at least.

The phone that cast light on the face beneath the hat was lowered, and a set of dark eyes met his own. His shoulders rose and fell, and though he didn’t hear the sigh from where he stood, he certainly heard the unmistakable insouciance in the guy’s voice.

“Come on, kid, I’d been sitting here trying to will you out of my periphery for two fucking hours, you were bound to fall on your ass at some point.” He pulled the hat off to run a hand through messy black hair, watching the whole time, and Ray wasn’t sure if he liked the way those eyes were piercing right through him. “At least allow me the entertainment.”

Ray laced his fingers behind his neck and tilted his head, half in amusement and the other in incredulity. “If you’re just here to read, why not go to a coffee shop where you can meet some other pricks of your breed that might sympathize?” There was a bite to his tone that wasn’t at risk of leaving any time soon, and since the guy didn’t seem to be leaving either, he figured he wouldn’t face too much celestial retribution for transcending niceties. And hell, he’d spent too much time willing away his bad temper for it to come roaring back.

But the comment just rolled right off the asshole’s back. He shrugged, and the apathy might as well have radiated from his core. “Quiet in here during the week. Well, it  _was_ , that is, before you got here.” He paired the upward inflection at the end of his sentence with a quirk of his lips, and fuck, if the bastard wasn’t  _still_  laughing at him. Maybe it was unnecessary for Ray to take it as a challenge, but his temper lit up like he’d been doused in gasoline.

“You have a name?” Ray demanded, eyes narrowing as he glided over to the rink’s edge. What a  _dick_ , he thought to himself.

Yet the guy’s grin widened like he’d read the thought straight from his mind. The smile went straight to his eyes, and god, he couldn’t have looked any more condescending. “Why, want to report me to your principal for bullying you? I’m Joel.”

So that’s how he was going to play it.

“Ray. More like get a name to put with the creep eyeing up a guy trying to unwind.”

Joel rose to his feet, leaning over the rail on crossed arms as a challenge lit up in his eyes right back alongside smug amusement. “Kid, I could watch you fall on your ass  _all_ day.” He sighed wistfully as he put a hand on his jaw contentedly, to Ray’s dissatisfaction. “And if it means pissing you off this bad over nothing, I might ditch reading in that coffee shop with my fellow pricks forever.”

The smile that followed the words crafted masterfully to rile him up was genuine, funny enough, but mocked him all the while; tickled and attentive, but not quite impressed. And if that wasn’t enough to get under Ray’s skin alone, that smile was  _beautiful_.

So to that, Ray rolled his eyes before he pushed off the wall and continued with his circuits, yelling back a “get a good fuckin’ look, asshole!” before hitting the ice once more, pulling his leg behind him into an arabesque in an admittedly flashy show of flexibility while darting to the opposite side of the rink.

But to his mild surprise – and delight, perhaps, though he’d never admit it to a soul, and especially not himself – Joel deposited his phone in his back pocket and did just that for another hour. He’d make snide comments from time to time – mocking, but not quite abrasive – whenever Ray stumbled, though admittedly most of the younger’s faults were due to laughter from Joel’s colorful impression of an event announcer. For all his adherence to the rules when he skated for his usual audience, Ray wasn’t pulling any fancy show tricks, and Joel wasn’t berating him for his less-than-lax form. It felt fantastic. Exhilarating, even.

He learned a little bit about him while he littered the ice with spirals, opting to leave his headphones down in favor of weaving conversation, largely consisting of stories exchanged and arguments tossed back and forth. He had a certain air of confidence about him that Ray hadn’t seen on anyone for a long time, and the gait of his voice held a familiarity he couldn’t quite place.

“So, what do you do?” he ventured after a while, turning to face Joel while he stretched his arms behind his head.

“A little bit of everything. You?”

“Uh, customer service, let’s say.”

“And what the fuck does that mean?” Joel asked, laughing good-naturedly. “‘Customer service’, that’s about as vague as it gets. Like, you could call it all the same thing whether you worked as a business consultant or for a maid service.”

Ray actually stopped in the middle of the ice, sending him a look so sideways Joel just laughed harder.

“I’m kidding. I’m sure you’re great at whatever it is you do.”

“Yeah,  _sure_ , jackass.”

Eventually, the initial tension had faded, and the two had begun to wade into friendly arguments and subtle jabs at each other that lit up Ray’s mood like a trail of gasoline; slow to start, but once it started, the entire damn thing was engulfed in warmth. And interestingly enough, by the time Ray finally skidded to a stop and put his hands on his knees to catch his breath, his anger had dissipated entirely. 

“Hey. Want to avoid getting mowed down by this Zamboni? Blood on the ice is sort of a liability.”

His head jerked up at the sound of the voice to meet a short kid likely about his age who was perched atop the machine parked at the rink’s entrance, hand on his chin and sporting a blank and thoroughly uninterested expression. Sending his glance to the rink sheepishly, Ray complied, sliding off the rink seamlessly and murmuring a quick apology to the guy as he passed.

And by the time he’d swung a leg over a chair in the stands near his newfound friend and decided to call it a day, he was out of breath equally from shared laughter and all the circuits he’d completed under Joel’s watch. He pulled his skates off his aching feet with minor difficulty, but managed to toss them in his bag and lean back in the chair as soon as the kid started up the machine that started gliding over the ice. He glanced over at Joel, who mirrored his expression with a faint smile.

“So,” Ray began with an eyebrow lifting in inquiry and a mockery of the same untouchable disdain he’d been sporting from the beginning, “you come here often?” It had been cheesy, but he felt like he had to ask, and he’d wait until he was farther away to sort out exactly why that was.

Joel snorted in reply. “Yeah, I’m a frequent flyer. I do tend keep to the stands, though.”

“You don’t skate?”

He shook his head. “Live close. Quiet place to read, like I said. Well,  _usually,_ ” he added with a calm smile before Ray swatted at him. He grabbed his wrist defensively, and Ray swung dangerously close to him with the remaining force from the movement over the armrest that separated their seats. They held each other’s gaze for a moment; watching to see what the other would do, maybe, but Ray definitely didn’t miss the way Joel’s eyes flickered to- wait, did he look at his  _lips_?

Snickering, Joel deftly slid the incriminating palm to the wayside, amused grin replacing his relaxed expression as if he’d read his mind.

“Didn’t realize you were so quick to get physical, Ray.” His voice was low and thoughtful, and a teasing lightness was present in his words, but it was different than before, and if Ray thought he could ignore it earlier, there was no chance of it now. His thoughts screeched to a standstill, but his neurons must have scrambled, because for all the wit he’d pulled out of thin air earlier, he was left with no gas on the side of the road and no good explanation for what Joel had just said that didn’t end in a serious case of innuendo.

Impeccably placed innuendo, he noted, with a gulp. But he wasn’t about to give him that victory. Not even if he was looking more and more appealing with every quip.

And if Ray had noticed anywhere below the belt – a hypothetical he wouldn’t merit with more than about a second of thought at the incriminating moment in time – he wouldn’t admit it in a million years. So he was quick to feign a scandalized glance and a jerk of his wrist to cover it up, but he didn’t need to look at the way Joel’s eyes followed his movement to know that he knew, too. But he didn’t say a word, and  _that_ was interesting.

They watched the kid – Kerry, as Joel identified him a while into his ritual – drive the Zamboni over the ice well past his thirty-minute mark, but by the time they’d grown notably content in each other’s silent company, Kerry was pointing at the door with a severe frown.

“Alright, mom, I’m  _going_!” Ray called, slinging his back over his shoulder and stepping into the aisle. He pulled his hand through his hair quickly before checking the time, and his eyebrows nearly jumped off his face when he was met with the time.

Looking back, he found Joel pulling a newspaper from beneath his seat, unfolding what looked like the business section from the graphs littering the visible portion of the sheet. His chest rose and fell, and Ray figured if he stayed any longer, he’d watch longer than he should. So he snapped himself back to Earth and straightened his spine, turning to send a wave back at Joel.

“Thanks for laughing at me, old man,” Ray called back to him between breaths. He hadn’t meant it to sound as endearing as it had sounded falling from his lips, but there was a feeling of ignition he’d been fighting for the last however long he’d spent with the guy over which he was too tired to maintain his determination.

“Always a pleasure,” Joel replied as he turned the page, glancing up at the Puerto Rican with a small smile. And to that, Ray held his middle finger high, turning quickly to keep Joel from seeing the grin tugging at his own lips as he passed through the door.

It was subtle enough to make Ray blink and wonder if he’d missed it, but the warmth in his expression had been unmistakable, and he had to catch himself from wondering when he’d see it again.


	2. i knew you wanted me to leave, but now i know you just wanted to watch me (go)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An executive decision is reached to return to the rink, and Michael exercises his particular(ly blunt) way with words.

As it turned out, Ray returned to that rink after practice ended on the Friday of the following week. He’d gotten through the week riding on the intention of returning, in fact, and he wasn’t quite sure if he’d made the decision on Monday over the stress relief or the company. Or both.

When he arrived, he slipped through the double doors marking the entrance, and didn’t have to wonder for very long whether or not he’d find the company he sought.

“Hey, look who it is!” Ray called, not bothering to stop the smile that broke out across his face as he put up a hand congenially. “The crypt keeper and the kid that tried to run me over.”

Kerry scowled at him while Joel turned from the column he leaned against, raising an eyebrow. “I think he just called you old, Kerry. You gonna take that?”

The eye roll that Kerry executed was scathing, and Ray didn’t bother withholding his snort of laughter. “Fuck off, Joel,” the blonde sighed, tilting his head to catch a glimpse of Ray. “Are you planning on spending the night again?”

That sarcasm sounded startlingly similar to Joel’s own. But the only good assumptions were none at all, right?

“Hey, you _do_ have the right to throw me out,” Ray shot back, brow wrinkling as he dropped himself gracelessly onto a bench, hunching over to lace up the skates dangling from his grasp. He looked up in time to see Joel turn to Kerry with a quizzical expression and ask a soft “are _you_ spending the night?”, and the sudden twinge of jealousy sparked by the abrupt question was something he’d never admit to in a million years. But he blamed any and all car chases after solicited attention on being a performer, so he swallowed it and left it on the bench. He laced up his skates and ignored the rest of their quiet bickering, passing them with a sardonic flourish before he stepped onto the ice. “I’ll spend the night if it means avoiding hearing Joel’s catcalling,” he said with a shrug, taking off into a large arc just in time for the man in question to whirl around to face the rink.

Maybe it wasn’t the healthiest thing in the world to rile up people you have some fucked-up sort of chemistry with – the beginning of it, anyway – but Joel looked amused, and Ray decided unabashedly that it was good enough for him.

The lingering eye that Joel kept on the rink, if Ray’s victorious eyes didn’t deceive him, was just an added bonus.

He mostly kept to himself on the circuits he did, relatively unable to hear the conversation that the two had struck up between the noise of his skates and his attempt to ignore it for the sake of his own peace of mind. A tactic that worked until they actually continued talking, that is; in fact, after half an hour of coping poorly, Ray finally skidded to a stop in front of them, ice flying from his blades into a mist, and Kerry might as well have grown fangs from the way he bristled.

“Hey, don’t destroy the rink,” he growled forebodingly. “I have to fix whatever you fuck up.”

“Kerry Shawcross, ladies and gentleman,” Joel purred, pinching Kerry’s cheek endearingly as Kerry waved an arm in defense. “Almost as terrifying as he is baby-faced.”

To that, Kerry scowled, firing back a quick ‘blow me’ before Joel simply blew him a kiss in reply, sneering and turning back to Ray after Kerry threw his arms up in the biggest ‘fuck it’ Ray had ever seen and made his way back into the lobby.

Ray raised an eyebrow as he watched him go, turning his gaze back to Joel after he was sure he was out of earshot. “So, not to pry, but is the reason you’re here so often…?” He trailed off, though, eyes set as he watched Kerry open the front door with a set of keys at his belt, linking pinkies with a brunette that stepped in from the cold and kissed him on the cheek as if on cue, and oh, god, did Ray falter. Big time.

Joel sent him a questioning glance when he remained silent, and at that point, words probably wouldn’t have helped, but he could at least try, right?

“ _Oh_.” Ray realized he probably looked at least marginally as dumbfounded as he felt, so he quickly straightened his expression and coughed. “Uh, never mind.”

Oh, yeah. Profound eloquence was decidedly Ray Narvaez Jr’s God-given talent. Fuck everything.

Joel blinked a few times, confusedly. “You thought–” His eyes followed Ray’s own, finding their mark with a start and drawing back immediately. “Oh, fuck, _no._ God no,” he said quickly, managing a mildly strained laugh and pulling a look of disgust. Raising a thumb to the two of them, who at this point were busy exchanging furtive glances, he shook his head. “He’s got the bearded thrift shop mascot over there.” Ray nodded, and by the time Joel had returned a curious eye in his direction to meet his gaze, he figured it’d be either rude or incriminating not to speak up.

He pressed his lips together tentatively and let a breath out through his nose in lieu of saying ‘well, _now_ I feel like the world’s biggest dick,’ but Joel beat him to it anyway when his lips twisted into a smirk.

“Well, someone looks a little less stressed.”

Ray sent him a sharp glance with a huff. “Meaning _what_ , exactly?”

Joel shrugged, but his eyes didn’t leave Ray’s own, and the knowing smile in them remained, too. “Those circuits must be working,” he said simply, beaming to Ray’s chagrin. _You put my blood pressure through the roof_ , the younger thought to himself, _and you enjoy every minute of it._ Placing two gloved hands on the rink’s inner surrounding walls, however, he decided to change the game in his favor. After all, the ice was his home court.

“You should try ‘em.”

Joel looked surprised, but not affronted, and if Ray looked harder – which he was growing accustomed to – he might have even looked amused.

“Yeah, uh, I prefer the stands.” He scratched his jaw idly, looking back over Ray’s shoulder to the glistening ice. “Physics are a little more manageable in a chair.”

But Ray wasn’t having any of it, grabbing Joel’s wrist before he gave himself time to hesitate and pulling him to the counter. “Come _on,_ Joel, the least you can do is let me laugh at you, too,” he snickered as Joel began protesting, fighting his grip like it left searing marks.

Kerry resurfaced shortly from between the racks of skates (doing heaven knows what, Ray thought to himself, given Joel’s look of surprise when he emerged) with a very bouncy companion, unlocking the door and sending Joel an inquisitive glance as he slid him a pair of skates. “Don’t break something, Joel,” he grumbled, as the brunette slid in beside him and put his elbows up on the counter.

Joel ignored that, instead glancing at Ray briefly from his periphery with a quirk of his lips and returning his gaze to the guy beside Kerry. “Who’s this? You don’t work here, do you?”

“Miles Luna, at your service,” Miles piped up, flashing them both a bright smile. “Just here for Kerry.”

Kerry couldn’t have turned pinker if he’d wanted to, and Ray, overcome with secondhand embarrassment, just opted to cup his face in his hand with a sigh.

Joel turned to Ray, who eyed him through his fingers, with a self-satisfied smirk. “Resident boyfriend if I ever saw one,” he whispered, grinning as Ray sighed exasperatedly before dragging him over to a bench and pointing to the skates.

It didn’t take much elaboration for his message to get across, but Ray did have to stare at him for a hot moment before Joel chose to do anything about it, and by the time he finally managed to cuff Joel’s wrists in his fingers and haul him onto the rink, he was starting to find friendly humor in the older man’s apparent nerves.

“You realize if I fall and even _one_ of my bones breaks into a billion tiny pieces, I can sue your ass for all it’s worth,” Joel growled, putting his elbows out for stabilization as Ray began gliding with him in tow.

“Yeah, yeah, go ahead and threaten.” Ray snickered as Joel wobbled when he jerked his arm abruptly, not bothering to suppress his laughter when Joel sent him a menacing stare in reply.

“I hate you,” he seethed, maintaining a glare about as well as his balance. “I really, really, _really_ do. First you threaten my peace and quiet, and now you’re threatening my safety.” He put out a forearm to equalize his center of gravity, and the approach was honestly so clinical it was ridiculous.

But Ray glanced back at him with a shake of his head. “Let me know if you find something you _don’t_ hate. You know, happiness, baby laughter, good will to all mankind.” He tugged on Joel’s wrist again, the owner of which clinging on for dear life, and gave him an experimental flex of his grip before pushing off the ice with a sudden burst of energy and letting him go.

He got halfway across the rink before he turned to check on Joel, and nearly doubled over from hysterical laughter when he saw him sitting on the ice scowling, both legs extended in front of him to form a very discouraged right angle with his torso.

“I look the other way for ten seconds and you manage to do this,” Ray gasped between bursts of laughter, making his way back over to Joel and slowing to a stop in front of him. He crouched down to a squat and crossed his arms over his knees, meeting Joel’s blank look with a good-natured smile.

“This is harassment,” Joel murmured as he slumped over on the ice, pulling the hood on his sweatshirt over his eyes as he stretched out on the rink. “Total fucking harassment.”

“Deal with it, you fuckin’ pansy.” Ray slid down on the ice next to him, prodding at his leg insistently. “I seem to remember _you_ taking amusement in my career as a stuntman.”

Joel sent him a disbelieving stare from where he peeked out from beneath his hood. “I could be seriously injured, and you’d just laugh.”

“I would _not_!” The Puerto Rican turned to him, pulling the hood from atop his head and exposing the puff of mussed hair. “I have common decency, unlike some of the creatures I know.”

Joel beamed. “That’s ‘creature of the night’ to you.”

“Uh-huh.”

“And you would’ve ignored me completely if I _hadn’t_ laughed.”

Ray sent him a curious smile, but didn’t miss a beat. “Don’t tell me you’re getting sentimental on me. If you wanted me to notice you, why didn’t you just say so?”

A single frigid finger found its way from the ice to press against Ray’s lips, and the younger’s mouth curved up behind the digit as Joel shook his head. He looked sincere for about a millisecond before his words took a 180 degree turn in the other direction, complete with a wicked smile he didn’t bother trying to hide one bit.

“Because you’re more fun to watch than you are to listen to.”

Ray knew that Joel said it to get a rise out of him, to rile him up so he could see what happened, and he knew from the way he was looking at him that the sadistic bastard was enjoying every minute of what he did to him. But he sure as hell wasn’t about to let him yank his legs out from under him while he was still on the ice, because as far as Ray was concerned, this was still his show.

So instead, he hoisted himself to his feet, offering a hand and a calm smile to help Joel up instead, which the older man took. He lifted himself up, Ray’s grip steadying the sway of his legs when he managed to regain his balance, and he ruffled his hair gratefully – almost affectionately, in fact – before Ray retained his hold on his hand, pulled him close, and looked him straight in the face.

“I wouldn’t put money on that assumption if I were you.”

Joel lifted a brow, intrigued. “Oh?”

And Ray sent him an impish grin of his own.

“Maybe you’ll even get a chance to investigate.”

As much as he tried to stifle it, Joel looked utterly _rapt_ , and Ray hardly had any doubt in his mind that he had that pair of eyes on him the entire way to the door _._

\--

“Aw, Ray! You made a wittle friend! You’re really moving up in the kindergarten ranks, let me tell ya.”

Ray squinted at the monitor, scrolling through the list of customer names and numbers in search of the nine digits on the sticky note before him. “I don’t know if I’d count him as a friend.”

And it was true, for all he was concerned – sure, Ray thought to himself, the two of them might “ _have_ something”, the clichéd, last-resort-of-a-phrase that no one really understood until there was no other way to describe whatever it was. They certainly had the beginnings of a very interesting rapport swirling with something that mostly lay uncharted, held up with casual teasing, flirting maybe, nothing more… but was it _really_ nothing? Ray didn’t want to look into it too much as to avoid the sheen of the novelty losing its luster, since he’d been in and out of casual crushes and not-so-casual stabs at relationships for years, and the spontaneity of the whole matter was thrilling in its own way where Joel was concerned. And catching the attention of someone like that thrilled him beyond compare.

But Joel was different. And hell, a title of such a breed – one describing him not as any old ‘someone’ but as ‘someone like _that_ ’ was strangely suiting. Others he could pass off on a pretty face or an interesting story, but something about the guy just prompted exploring. His presence gave an entirely new context to what Ray knew about the spotlight, turned attentiveness into interest and eye contact into something that lit up like floodlights, something that shone like piercing luminescent bulbs in the mist of dusk and threw a single circle of white on every thought he expressed, every sentence he wouldn't dare utter otherwise. It thrilled him like the spotlight did, that was for certain, and he had no idea why. So could anyone blame him for being hesitant to him a friend when it sounded like there was so much more to it?

One thing was certain, he concluded with a sigh, as he tossed the crumpled piece of paper in the trash. For all his forward thinking, he planned to admit _nothing_.

“Hey, he only _threatened_ to sue you. Sounds like a solid connection to me.” Michael waggled his eyebrows, and Ray only caught the tail end of the motion by the time he’d glanced up and swatted at him a few times.

“Seriously, though, that’s bullshit – hell, you let him watch you skate. You’ve never even let _me_ watch you skate.”

Ray huffed, closing out of the program and sending Michael a look over his lenses. “Because it’s boring as shit, and Burnie works routines into my feet to the point that they aren’t fun anymore. Joel’s only seen me do circuits.”

To that, Michael frowned, shaking his head in disbelief. “I refuse to believe you’re capable of something that fucking mundane when you go doing pliés all over the place otherwise,” he muttered, leaning down to pull two cans from the backpack seated at his feet. He held out one of them, glinting blue and red in his hand. “Caffeine?”

The younger looked slightly affronted, but accepted the can graciously. “I did it as stress relief, thanks,” he qualified drily. “Besides, he wasn’t paying attention for a good part of it, so it’s not like I had anything to show off.”

“Yeah, right. You’re probably lying through your teeth.” Michael grimaced as he struggled momentarily to the can, sheepishly offering it up to Ray who offered with an extended palm to help him out. “And plus, it sounds like he couldn’t _stop_ watching if he offered up banter like that so quick,” he snickered, taking back the drink before ruffling his hair gratefully.

But Ray looked unimpressed. “Oh, yeah. Forgot to mention that I put Love Sex Magic over the speakers and started pelvic thrusting on the rink while he watched,” he said with a laugh, one that quickly spun into a bout of hysteria as Michael snorted into his can and lapsed into a coughing fit.

“Jesus, Ray,” he gasped as he finally reclaimed control of his windpipe and Ray’s laughter subsided, “I’m serious, I refuse to believe that this guy hasn’t figured out that you skate. Skate really _well_ , from what I’ve heard,” he added with an outstretched finger and a serious expression when Ray started shaking his head.

“I’m alright, but that’s pretty much it,” he offered with a shrug. “And I don’t exactly see a way to tell him that wouldn’t sound like I was fishing for compliments.” He flicked the top of the unopened can a few times absentmindedly, not realizing he was staring down at nothing in particular until he heard Michael start to giggle after a few silent moments.

“What?” Ray demanded, admittedly taking on a bit of an accusatory tone when he looked up, but Michael just started eyeing him closely with the beginning of a shit-eating grin. And those just didn’t historically end well.

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d absolutely call you out on having a crush on tall, dark, Longhorns fan.”

Evidently this time was no different.

Michael’s knowing look widened into a smirk when Ray started backpedaling upon hearing those words, sputtering before looking at him sideways with a shrill “are you _shitting_ me?” before the redhead moved out of arm’s reach, cackling all the way.

Geoff resurfaced from the back room at this point, yanking on the spiraled cord while he explained the company’s return policy to a customer over the phone – evidently the universe wasn’t in his favor today and opted for Michael’s saving grace instead, Ray decided bitterly – so the Puerto Rican took the opportunity to send Michael a final, distressed look before moving to drop the subject.

“Besides, it’s not like we’ve known each other long!” He grimaced at how desperately like a plea his words had sounded, and Michael had no doubt picked up on it. He beamed right back at Ray before slipping out from behind the counter to go greet a couple that walked in, slapping him on the shoulder as he passed and leaning in close to murmur something in his ear he only managed to catch by the time Michael had skipped across the store.

“But it sounds like you want to.”


	3. try and break me, sweetheart, i only bend

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As far as Joel was concerned, the kid he'd somehow landed in his passenger seat drew out his appetite for bad behavior and the finer things in life, including but certainly not limited to absolutely NOT following the rules of the road, losing his propensity for the English language in favor of a more unholy set of sounds, and very nearly being upstaged by a little tease with legs that went on forever and was entirely aware of it. And if the smirk Ray wore was any indication, "bad behavior" thrilled him to no end.
> 
> Oh, and gear shifts can go fuck themselves.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (it was bound to happen at some point. <3)

By the third time Ray made it to the rink, Joel hadn’t forgotten their bet, even though the funds weren’t exactly the spoils up for exchange.

“So, why do you do it?”

Ray had asked the question to break the silence after Joel had leaned against the wall, fumbling with a pack of Marlboros between cold fingers. The younger had finished his laps that evening, and for the first time, Joel had opted to step through the door with him as Kerry locked up behind them. The words weren’t asked in an incriminatory way, nor were they voiced with an apparent agenda, but Joel hadn’t been expecting it – providing, of course, the most eloquent of responses he could muster.

“Huh?”

Ray gestured to the stick of tobacco he was fighting the wind in an attempt to light. “The smoking. Stressed?”

Joel paused, withdrawing the cigarette from between his lips after his lighter finally sparked long enough to light up. He let out a breath, but the vapor that left his lungs at that moment swirled through the air as frost, not smoke. Looking back to Ray, his shoulders rose and fell with a shrug. 

“Same reason people do anything.”

Ray frowned, shaking his head. “That’s not a fair answer.” He lifted an eyebrow as the older man launched himself from the wall, shoes crunching in the errant piles of snow still on the ground with each step he took toward Ray before he stood in front of him, arms crossed and eyes narrowed not to appear menacing, but to examine the kid staring right back at him. He put his cigarette back between his teeth and took a drag, holding Ray’s gaze all the while and letting the smoke pour from his lips.

“Feels good. Same reason people do anything that feels good, how about that.”

Ray’s tongue incidentally darted between lips too impossibly pink _not_ to notice, now that he mentions things that theoretically feel good.

“You’re not worried you’ll drop dead?”

“Live in the moment,” Joel replied with a laugh, blowing a puff of smoke against Ray’s cheeks, meriting a scrunched up nose and a chuckle in response from the shivering Puerto Rican before him. “At least I won’t die in a freak skating accident.”

He was vaguely expecting the broken-record response from Ray that he’d received in all his years before, the inevitable “you really should stop before the cancer takes your last breath”, but to his mild surprise, he was met with the wind on his face and the kid behind a scarf rocking on his heels staying resolutely in place.

And instead, Ray beamed. “Hey, sounds like the old grump is learning The Lifestyle.” He laid two extended fingers over two from the other hand to form a mock hashtag, mouthing a quick ‘yolo’ and offering a lopsided grin, and if Joel hadn’t been preoccupied with rolling his eyes, he might have found it charming.

The cigarette burned to a stub quickly – whether it was from the wind, or the fact that he hadn’t been paying attention, however, he wasn’t quite sure. But one thing he _was_ sure of was the fact that Ray had mentioned that he lived across town, and was attempting to unlock a bike from the bike rack near the doors they’d exited through not long before.

“You rode a fucking bike over here?” Joel blinked, squinting confusedly at Ray, who was in the process of sifting through his keys. “Is this a regular occurrence?!”

Ray frowned, turning to face Joel from where he knelt by the rack. “Yes? The freeway is empty at night, and there’s backroads, it’s really not a big de-“

Joel poked him gently with a foot, shaking his head. “You are an idiot,” he interrupted softly. “You must be exhausted.” He watched Ray shake his head defiantly, and almost laughed – sympathetically, not with any crueler intentions – when he yawned immediately afterward. Something in his chest thrummed like a string when he saw it, though, and he couldn’t help the question that escaped his mind directly following it.

“I can drive you.”

He surprised himself, and he must have surprised Ray too from the way his keys fell from his grip with a mild curse. The younger visibly paused in his movements, though, turning to look up at Joel from where he squatted on the ground. “You mean it? I don’t want to trouble you, though, I’ve gotten home fine before.”

Joel’s shoulders rose and fell. “I don’t mind. In fact, as long as you’re onboard with the idea, I insist, because I’d rather not have you refuse and end up roadkill.”

“You sure I’m safer in your metal deathtrap than mine?”

With a smile he’d classify as only mildly condescending, Joel stepped out of Ray’s line of sight to gesture to his car, and decided it really wasn’t good for his ego to see the kid’s eyes get so wide at waist-level. Even over a _car_ , for Christ’s sake.

But through all the history of modern technology, who ever said that people couldn’t be impressed by the nice ones?

Ray’s eyes lit up as quickly as the dashboard when Joel put the key in the ignition, and the older man noticed with a humored snicker. He turned to Ray with his wrist on the wheel, who glanced up from the message he’d been typing.

“So, how far is your place, exactly?”

Ray’s fingers stilled on the keys he’d been tapping, not bothering to fight the smile creeping onto his lips as he decided he _really_ liked the sound of that.

“Depends on how fast you drive.”

Joel grinned with too many teeth to be remotely safe or sane, and something deep in Ray’s gut began to stir when he saw it. He sent off the message, a brief _text me in 20 minutes and remind me that he’s in his 40s?_ sent to Michael, before he slid his phone into his pocket and curled his fingers around the edge of his seat.

\--

As it turns out, Joel took Ray’s answer not as a time constraint, but instead, as a challenge. Despite Ray’s half-hearted attempts at protesting, they’d taken off down the freeway pushing 110, and with the windows down and the wind blowing through their hair down a deserted stretch of straight, empty asphalt, he quickly decided between bouts of laughter that Joel was either insane or showing off. Or both.

“So you’re into luxury cars, I take it?” Ray momentarily let out a breath and relinquished his grip on the leather once he’d gotten the words out, but before too long, Joel rounded a bend and his knuckles quickly whitened again. He turned to meet the older man’s laughter with narrowed eyes, gesturing helplessly to the speed limit signs that whizzed by.

“High-performance,” Joel corrected with a sneer. “They use these to race for a reason, why not drive ‘em like they’re made to be driven?”

They tore down the road like they were never going to stop, and god, it was so liberating. He swallowed the less than heavenly thoughts creeping into his mind, bit his tongue and willed his mind to rear back from the blood that had been pooling beneath his belt since they’d started this little dance, but fuck, this kid made it so hard with his pink lips and wide eyes. _Oh, yeah_ , he noted as his eyes flicked over to Ray, who was leaning back in the leather seat and watching the streetlights fly by when he wasn’t sending glances over to Joel himself, _he made it **really** hard_.

Ray practically _purred_ his name in half-hearted protest when they went around a curve a little too fast (which Joel admitted, but hey, he’d been at this for years, and if he didn’t trust himself to not endanger another life, he wouldn’t have offered to take the kid home in the first place), almost caught in the wind and _almost_ too breathy to pick up at first, but dear Jesus in heaven, he was willing to bet that his name would sound even better falling from those lips as a sigh. He glanced over as Ray gripped the door handle tight with his lips stretched into a grin, turning what came dangerously close to a half-lidded glance into an investigative one. His hands tightened on the steering wheel before he knew it, and he quickly shifted his gaze back to the asphalt after he saw the movement catch Ray’s line of sight, instead focusing on the broken lines disappearing faster and faster from his view.

Ray just eyed him from where he sat, though – and yet, here they were in a moving vehicle, and the kid’s eyes were screaming challenge. Like they always had. He was sure he was sitting there formulating the perfect thing to say, hell, he’d tried to play it off like he was scared, but if the way he was perched there biting at his lips so impishly was any indication–

“You’re gonna kill us, you realize. For Christ’s sake, let me live another week.”

Joel _loved_ being right. Ray didn’t sound scared a bit, and he _knew_ Joel knew that. In fact, the younger man sounded utterly charged, and before too long, he was perched on the edge of his seat, shooting snide remarks about Joel’s driving every time he took it upon himself to swerve and send Ray flying against the door with a grin and a burst of laughter.

By the time they’d taken Ray’s exit, Joel had slowed down enough to not attract undue attention from a few errant patrolling officers they passed on the way to his apartment, but that didn’t stop Ray from executing a theatrical sigh once he’d parked and turned the car off.

Joel chuckled as he left the keys dangling from the ignition. “Thank you for flying with us,” he offered with a flourish, mouth curving in the dark. Ray snorted with a shake of his head in reply, sending a distrait glance not quite in Joel’s direction. “Yeah, well, thanks for not encountering any unexpected turbulence. Like other cars. Or landmarks.”

There was a beat as they sat there for a minute in the dark, knowing that once the glow of the lights came on above them, it would count for more of an answer than anything less than a ‘so, what do we do now?’ murmured into the uncertain silence. It would’ve been so easy if it were anyone else, Joel thought to himself; hell, the _exit stage left, fade to black!_ would’ve been like riding the tide, and whatever happened when their fingers either laced with Joel’s own or waved goodbye would happen as it would.

As it always had, right?

But this kid wasn’t anyone else. And that made the whole thing so complex and uncertain and easy to overthink.

Not to mention as alluring as the devil himself.

So Joel wasn’t surprised when _Ray_ was the one to finally speak up, looking him in the face when he came back down from his thoughts with eyes very dark and _very_ amused.

“So, how long are we going to do this dance?”

It was a question asked innocently enough, but his eyes were sparkling with the brand of teasing that Joel had come to know as strikingly characteristic of everything Ray and associated otherwise. The kind of teasing that sounded like he really didn’t want it to stop. Especially since dropping the kid off halfway across town after getting eyeful after eyeful, accidental and not-so-accidental contact, and snark that nearly put his own to shame – and then proceeding to stare that in the face like Ray was staring at him, and _leave?_ – was the shittiest excuse in the book to leave him hanging.

And they couldn’t have that.

Joel was the one that closed the space between them without any more hesitation, putting a hand at the back of Ray’s neck to pull him in and pressing his lips against Ray’s own, and the air that left both sets of lungs might have sounded a little more like _finally_ if they hadn’t been caught up in stealing each other’s breaths.

The kiss they shared wasn’t frantic, but savored the slow moments and built on all the tension and the quips they’d been exchanging for weeks, and _god_ , it felt so good. The stroke of Ray’s tongue in his mouth was a welcome departure from all the times it’d been used against him, and before too long, Joel had his fingers threaded in his hair and would’ve been more prone to considering the self-control he was threatening to abandon. They’d thrown caution out the window when they’d traversed the freeway, and at this point, where they kissed each other open-mouthed and absolutely ached with desire, they had no intent on reeling it back in.

He smiled against his lips when Ray gripped him by the collar – which was not at all a surprise, he thought to himself – and pulled him close, right up against the gear shift and very nearly out of his seat, but he savored the noise of surprise (quickly followed by contentment) that reverberated from his throat when he slid a hand around the kid’s narrow sides and pulled him back. His palm traced the curve of Ray’s back all the way down to the jeans hanging low on his waist, wrapping around and squeezing just in time for Ray’s teeth to graze his lower lip teasingly and the groan he received for his efforts was entirely unabashed. Joel’s other hand made its way to cup Ray’s jaw, determined to keep a hold on the creature in his hands that was all teeth and tongue and hot enough to make him wonder if he’d disappear when the fog from the windows cleared.

When they finally broke the kiss to come up for air, Joel caught himself considering the best way to maneuver Ray over the console to land in his lap, but thankfully, Ray offered a more than viable alternative when he breathed “walk me up?” against his lips with a small smile.

Joel ducked out of the driver’s seat faster than he remembered managing such a feat ever before, closing his door with a click and rounding the front of the car to meet Ray on the other side. The Puerto Rican tugged a hand through his wind-tangled hair, a familiar feeling of warmth beginning to pool in his gut as Joel stood in front of him.

“You didn’t have to drive so fast if you wanted to impress me,” he offered archly, crossing his arms to will away the faint flush that lingered his cheeks.

The corner of Joel’s lips quirked up, and he didn’t miss a beat.

“If I thought I needed to impress you, you would have been gripping something other than the edge of your seat.”

And if there was any doubt before whether Ray could keep up, the thrill that flickered through his eyes at that moment was unparalleled.

Ray willed himself for all he was worth not to lower his gaze, and Joel could see the determination in his eyes – quite likely because he probably knew it would look demure, and it was equally likely that Ray, being the argumentative little firebrand that he was, _really_ wasn’t about to go for such apparent vulnerability in front of someone who just recently had their tongue down his throat, Joel thought to himself – but suddenly maintaining his gaze in pools black enough to swallow the sun was looking more and more difficult. 

Ray’s fingers were tangled with his own faster than he could register, and he made it up the steps of the apartment complex while mostly retaining his grace, but by the time they’d reached what he could only assume was Ray’s front door, Joel had gripped him by the hips and pressed him against the wall, a knee between his legs, desire thrumming through his veins and pressing hot and hard against him from Ray’s end, too. 

“You can either kiss me goodnight out here, or in there,” Ray said when they parted long enough for him to speak, eyes burning with the implication as he watched Joel’s gaze drop and rake back up his flushed form. It was sudden, and the words he’d left unspoken rang louder in Joel’s ears than even what he’d uttered, but in that moment, between the way Joel’s grip tightened at the wrecked hoarseness in Ray’s voice and the speed in which the words went straight to his dick, he figured the look he returned would tell him all he needed to know.

Ray fished his keys out of his pocket, which was a feat Joel had no intent to simplify, so by the time he’d fended him off and searched for the lock in the dark, they were leaning against the doorframe for support. The lock finally turned with a satisfying _click_ , and he hardly had time to push the door open before dragging Joel through the entryway.

He glanced at his phone to see a reply from Michael before he managed to close it, and shot one back by the time it had clicked shut behind him.

_New message from Fluttershy Sympathizer Jones, received 10:47 pm  
It’s been 25 minutes, but I think it’s safe to say he’s still in his 40s._

_Reply from BrownMan, sent 11:01 pm  
too late. he’s in his 40s, drives like a maniac, think he just taught me french, and is currently in my apartment. #yolo_

\--

They dragged each other up the stairs, ending atop the landing and pressed to each other in a flash. Ray’s arms were linked in a heavy collar around Joel’s neck by the time they made it to the bed, hauling the older man down with him when Joel shoved him onto his own mattress. He landed above him, close enough to feel both sets of lungs expanding, but far enough away for Ray to have to twist his fingers into Joel’s shirt in earnest and demand his attention without saying a word, given a well-placed tug and brush of his fingers. And when Joel’s gaze swam into focus, Ray’s eyes were wide and full of wonder, and Joel vaguely began to consider the fact that he might have a virgin in his palms before he ran a steady hand up the inside of Ray’s thigh almost absentmindedly and received a buck of the hips in reply. So naturally, all other thoughts moved to the wayside as he stood on his knees, wrapped his arms around Ray’s lower back, and moved him so he was sprawled out and panting in his own sheets, arms spread wide and anticipatory at the head of the bed.

Joel moved up the bed between the fabric of the sheets and the increasing strain of his jeans, settling between Ray’s legs when he reached the pillows and pressing open mouthed kisses between the younger’s thighs. He tugged the beltloops that rested against his hipbones into hooked fingers when Ray’s fingers found their way into his hair, tangling encouragingly before tightening when Joel’s tongue flicked out to trace a line up the seam between his legs. He yanked on the sheets and did a piss poor job of stifling the lewdest of groans, but it only urged Joel on, unapologetic smile curving against Ray’s erection as he pressed kiss after heated kiss to the warm flesh beneath the denim.

When he looked up, he was met with shining lips bitten a deep shade of red and hands that were quick to pull him the rest of the way up the bed, and _fuck_ , the way Ray was rutting against him made him want to lock them both in the bedroom forever. He’d made it far enough up to press his body flush against the one beneath him before Ray hooked one, no, _both_ legs around his waist and hummed his content down Joel’s throat, and if Joel was perfectly honest with himself, whatever self-control he’d scraped together that was keeping him from taking this beautiful soul then and there was looking less and less appetizing in the overwhelming presence of the sight laid out before him. So he opted to do instead what his libido had been screaming since he set a foot in the guy’s apartment, and what Ray had been whispering in every touch and satisfied little groan he’d managed.

He wasn’t expecting Ray to grab him by the shoulders and flip him on his back, though, pressing him up against the spokes on the headboard and climbing into his lap like he belonged there, and _god_ , he should’ve fucked this kid ages ago. Every well-placed sigh against his lips was a reminder, every lingering graze of his fingers against fabric that quickly gave way to bare skin, and his cock twitched in agreement.

Their shirts were the last to join the mess of clothes littering the floor and the bed, somewhat ironically, and aside from the mess of bruises Ray had no doubt acquired from his antics on the ice, Joel was floored by how pale his skin was. Or maybe how he swore his own eyes were going to roll back in his head if he didn’t get his mouth on every inch of it immediately.

“Kid, you’re way too fucking dainty for your own good, know that?” he murmured, running a curious hand over the bruises gently enough to merit a breath Ray sucked through his teeth. “Don’t call me kid, and _definitely_ don’t call me dainty,” he grit out in reply, “unless you plan on marking me up.”

And to that, Joel opted for a simple reply, pressing his lips to the curve of his collarbone with a graze of teeth and grinning wide as Ray tossed his head back, a groan escaping from deep in his throat.

It didn’t take long before the quiet sighs and broken pleas for more started making Joel’s head spin, and between his own erection – which was getting increasingly difficult to keep to the wayside for sake of passion and drawing those beautiful noises from the creature perched on top of him – and the other pressed hard against his waist, dripping against Ray’s belly, he opted to break the kisses in favor of something a little more satisfying.

“Do you have… ?” He hardly got the fragmented question out before Ray leaned to the side and had a foil packet between his teeth, followed quickly by rubber between his fingers, rolling down the length of Joel’s cock and dear _Jesus_ , alright, so he’s positively _not_ a virgin.

He watched Ray swing a leg back over his waist and nearly clawed the mattress open when the younger ground his hips down on Joel’s, erections brushing against each other while Ray rocked against him. He held Joel down with an extended arm latched to his forearm while his other hand slid around his back and disappeared from sight, and judging by the no less than heavenly sigh that Ray let out, Joel could only guess where it went. The tell-tale bottle of lube that dropped to the floor soon after was just icing on the cake.

“You’re a fucking _tease_ ,” he breathed, craning his neck to get an eyeful as Ray worked himself open. “At least let me help.”

“Nope,” Ray taunted with a wide grin and a _tsk_ behind a waved finger, “ _this_ is for laughing when I hit the ice.”

Joel looked entirely aghast, eyes widened in disbelief. “You’re joking. You’d keep me from--?” His hips jerked up in defiance, but Ray held him back down, squeezing his sides between his thighs while he received a low groan as a reward. The look on his face quickly flickered to something a little less controlled as his breathing picked up, rocking against Joel’s pelvic bone with intention maddeningly apparent. Joel leaned back in exasperation, flexing his wrist in Ray’s grip and reaching for the younger’s waist with his free hand (to no avail, as Ray moved out of his reach with a teasing chuckle), meeting the younger’s eyes with a sharp glance clouded in lust when his makeshift bond didn’t budge.

He pressed his lips together in frustration for a moment. “You just _live_ for an audience, don’t you?” Joel eyed him carefully, not even bothering to hide the sneer on his lips as the hand behind Ray’s back slowed.

And the smile that broke out across Ray’s face shortly after was certainly telling.

“Just watch, like you’re so good at doing already,” he sighed between staggered breaths and a faint quirk to his lips that Joel _knew_ his imagination hadn’t simply conjured up. “You’ll get your chance to touch soon enough.”

Another unexpected lurch of Joel’s hips produced a beautifully lewd cry from Ray’s throat, though, so he made the executive decision that keeping his hands off was proving a little too taxing for his tastes, and playing nice just wasn’t his style.

Plus, the noise that Ray made when Joel pulled him down and rolled on top of him was nothing short of glorious.

“Couldn’t wait that long, huh?” Ray giggled against Joel’s shoulder as he shifted above him, laughter quickly turning to a whine as the older man slid a finger into him. “You say that like you weren’t putting on a show,” he said with a roll of his eyes, slipping a second in without wasting any time and all but consuming the gasp he was met with.

When he finally slid his fingers out, he wondered momentarily how begging would sound snaking past Ray’s lips, but Joel was well aware he’d send them both into a frenzy if he waited any longer. So he coaxed Ray’s legs open wide, whispering filthy things against Ray’s neck and kissing skin that was hot enough to feel an inch away in time to the shudders wracking the body beneath him. “God, I could lose myself in you,” Joel murmured, gripping the backs of Ray’s knees and pressing his thumbs into the sides almost tenderly. “ _Fuck_ , Ray, want to fill you up so goddamn bad.”

Ray met his gaze when he pulled himself up and placed all his weight on his palms, the younger’s eyes glazed with want and everything else positively dripping in a sheen of lust, and it was enough to draw thirty kinds of swears from Joel’s tongue had he been able to say anything when Ray arched off the mattress and showed him just how well he could bend.

Joel’s fingers fanned out over pale skin as he held Ray’s legs up over his head, pressing his calves to the mattress in one smooth, fluid movement and following with wonder the way Ray’s muscles gracefully complied. “You’re some kind of flexible, kid,” Joel breathed, lining up with Ray’s entrance as a broken moan escaped from the younger’s lips before he grates out a quick “if you call me a kid one more time I will kick you out of this bed, so just shut up and _fuck_ _me_ ”, rocking forward so Joel’s dick rubbed against him just enough to cause sweet, delirium-inducing friction that he wanted to remember forever, and at this point, Joel decided he was beyond thrilled to comply. So he hiked him up against his hips, pushed his knees back one last time, and slid in.

A sibilant curse escapes from between Joel’s parted lips as Ray offers a breathy ‘oh, _fuck’_ of his own, fingers finding their way to the back above him and clutching tight as Joel pressed forward, burying himself to the hilt. Fingers that soon clutched for purchase when he drew back and thrust in again, nails that dug into Joel’s back when he breathed an airy “how’s that?” across the younger’s lips and drew out a low, visceral moan in reply. “Ah, god- _shit_ , you’re so good,” Ray managed, meeting his next thrust halfway and crying out when Joel finally, _finally_ wrapped his fingers around Ray’s cock and pulled in time to his thrusts.

“Fuck, _Ray_ ,” Joel breathed, tightening his grip before picking up the pace. He could tell Ray was dangling on a hinge, expression twisted in pleasure while he crowed out obscenities between frantic, fragmented speech that heightened with every surge forward that Joel offered, and when he slowed down to a teasing pace simply to see what he’d extract from the younger man, he was met with the loveliest “fuck, oh god, _Joel_ , don’t you dare fucking stop--” that certainly swayed him to indulge.

Ray’s fingers fell to the bed, clutching at the sheets before moving to wrap around the spokes on his headboard, half to stabilize and the other to have something to hang onto without raking Joel’s back half to hell, and Joel might not have noticed if his head hadn’t tossed back and exposed his beautiful throat in the process. When his hand moved from Ray’s leg to fall against the mattress, pressing his chest to the one beneath him and latching his teeth to Ray’s neck, the tang of salt-slicked skin and almost sweat hitting his tongue immediately, he received a moan so desperate and utterly _wrecked_ that it nearly drove him to the edge right then and there.

And by the time he did, he managed to gasp out his name through bitten-back groans he’d stopped trying to stifle the minute he heard Ray cry out his own. He felt Ray tense beneath him, slicking his chest and Joel’s hand when he comes with a shuddering gasp, and Joel fucked into him a few more times to ride out the sweet release before the exhaustion hit.

When he slowed to a stop, Ray sighed beneath him, tugging him down beside him with a tired smile. Before either of them said anything, though, Ray surprised them both by pressing a chaste kiss to his lips, both of them dazed and depleted and perhaps breathing a little too hard to be sharing one, but there was something about the gesture that left them both smiling into it. By the time they parted and Joel had stripped the condom off, Ray had murmured something about him spending the night if he wanted, and between the sleep tugging at his eyelids and the all-consuming warmth of his bed, Joel could have kissed him again.

The next morning, Ray rolled over and had his face buried in the scent of his pillow for a good ten minutes before he sat bolt upright in bed and remembered, in his dazed transition to wakefulness, that he didn’t _wear_ cologne. Memories of the night before came flooding back like the light through his blinds, and when he turned over, his eyes fell to the pillow beside him, where a lone piece of paper lay with ten digits and a note.

 _“Investigation still incomplete – need further data collection. Might be less likely to put money on that assumption after first trial, though_.

_And let me know when you want your bike back.”_


	4. i'm done blaming my vices, since i'm hooked on you instead

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thursday nights were set aside for Ray to practice with Burnie and for Joel to let his liquor get him into a temporarily (but startlingly) social state of mind, but when they aren’t together in the flesh, each had a strange tendency to find the other increasingly on their mind. And occasionally on the conversation table, if their tongue slipped.
> 
> But hey, getting Joel to draw back the curtain on all the things that made him turn pinker than the alcohol did was his friends’ specialty.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank god for Kara Eberle, am I right?

Friday night bar-hopping with Jack (and company, occasionally) generally consisted of a series of fragmented memories for Joel. He didn't bother to remember much about them, usually, retaining simply the necessary - what his drink order was, for example, or who he was with, or who drove, and how to maneuver his phone to summon a cab if he forgot any or all of the first three.

Tonight, however, he was pleasantly buzzed, arms up on the table around Jack, Adam, and Caiti, laughing harder than he was initially aware at a joke that Caiti made, and things were _awesome_. He’d been out before when he drank exclusively for the purpose of letting the bubbles pour into his bloodstream to the point he staggered in his place, and for the right motivation, getting that kind of certain high – out of touch with the world to the point at which your string to all things so strictly reason-oriented is temporarily severed, that is – can be delightfully remedial.

The funny thing about it all was that Joel was ordinarily a chronic man of reason. He wasn’t cold (depending on who you asked, granted), but he was certainly analytical, and submerged himself in numbers and calculations until he resurfaced with a balanced mind and a general apathy that left him warm and mildly buzzed like good scotch. But every once in a while, something came around that threw off his collected façade and left him reeling, and it was a chaos he’d learned to embrace – at least, while it lasted, that is. And it escaped him how anyone expected him to run, much less _drive_ , around the world and pay close attention to the speed limits and the big pictures and the water beneath the bridge when he’d all but lost all rational control over himself for a kid.

Well, he was certainly headed down that road, and fuck if he _wasn’t_ about to take it head-on pushing 110.

Yes, today was different, he mused as he stared into the bottom of his glass with a hint of a smile. And he felt it.

They’d sat around together discussing any topic under the sun, from Joel’s tangent about silver reserves when Adam mentioned a trip to New York to the state of cartoon broadcasting on modern day cable (Jack passed it all off as conspiracy, but Caiti was quick to jump to their defense), and by the time Joel managed to duck out of the conversation long enough to check his phone, their favorite bartender decided to pay a visit to their table.

“So,” a familiar voice began, as a blonde appeared at the end of the table where the four of them had convened, “pardon my French, but where the fuck have _you_ four been?”

They looked up to see Kara standing with her arms crossed in mock haughtiness, which was a welcome interruption from Joel’s thoughts. He smiled as she ruffled Jack and Joel’s hair from behind their booth, Caiti jumping up to throw her arms around her not too long after.

“I haven’t seen you all out together as the Four Musketeers in a long time. Commence weaving your respective excuses.”

Naturally, Joel took it upon himself to tell the tales of the group in his typical method of abridgement, condensing what had been months – god, had it really been _months_? – into a few oversimplified phrases strung together with as much eloquence as whiskey had to offer.

He pointed to each person as their names left his lips. “Jack and Caiti have been doing married people stuff, Adam has been fucking around doing nothing, as per usual—”

And Adam didn’t miss a beat, interrupting him without breaking the flow of his words a bit.

“And Joel has a new.. what’d you call him? Boytoy?”

The older man was cut off mid-sentence, letting out what would’ve been the second half of it in a short breath that ended in a taut smile. Well, he’d avoided it most of the night, but paired with liquor, it was bound to come up at some point. He made a mental reminder to sew his lips shut.

Turning to Adam, he lent him a burning stare as he slid his phone back into his pocket. “Thank you for paraphrasing so nicely,” he mused cloyingly, to which he received a snicker in return. _Three against one?_ he mused sourly. _Awesome._

Kara slid into the booth next to Caiti, bouncing in her seat as they both turned excited eyes on him. “Hey, share with the class!” Kara said suddenly, interest suddenly piqued, which in turn set the entire table’s attention on him.

“Um,” he began, moving back as far as he could under the sudden scrutiny. “Adam neglected to mention that I’m not _with_ him, we just met at the rink.”

Kara honed her gaze in on Joel, examining him closely, and Joel was about to say something about feeling like he was soaking in a petri dish full of alcohol and to therefore _not_ take advantage of his state of vulnerability when she finally spoke up.

“You’re a Virgo, right?” she finally asked, tapping her cheek contemplatively.

Joel squinted confusedly, opting to address the question with caution. “Middle of September. Why?”

“For someone who loves acting like he has no emotions, you’ve got hearts swimming in your eyes.” She snickered, putting a hand on her hip. “Typical Virgo.”

Make that four against one.

So Joel pouted (he blamed the liquor), hunching his shoulders to try and will away the grin she wore like a cat, and the interest of the rest of the goddamn table wasn’t helping.

“So, is he cute?”

Joel actually tried to get up from the booth, but Adam held him in place with a jovial smile and a strong arm. Needless to say, he gave up without a struggle relatively quickly. Well, without _that_ much of one.

“I plead the fifth,” he croaked out with a grimace as the bearded man shoved him back in his seat.

Kara snickered. “Would you sleep with him if he wasn’t?”

“Who said I was sleeping with him?”

The resulting murmur through the group probably would’ve been more of a murmur than the clamor it actually was if they’d been less drunk, less acquainted with Joel, and less likely to talk over each other. And Joel had a headache the minute the words were out of his mouth.

“ _You_ did,” Adam cut in with a sly smile.

Joel sent him the blankest stare he could muster.

“Why are we talking about this, again?”

“Because we want to know!”

“Yeah, come on, Joel, we just want to look out for the owner of the poor bed you’re crawling out of.”

“You say that like I’m diseased.”

“I thought that was common knowledge.”

“The _hell_ , Jack?”

“Wait, so you _are_ sleeping with him! What’s he like?”

“Are you fucking _kidding_ me?”

“Joel,” Kara began warningly, “don’t make me bust out the Patrón.”

So with a defeated sigh, Joel motioned for her to move closer, leaning over the table and whispering something in her ear behind a discreet hand – something that sent her eyes wide and a disbelieving laugh falling from her lips. “Oh my _god_ ,” she giggled, as Joel pulled away with a snicker of his own. “Take a bar of soap from the back to clean that mouth. Actually, take another one for your brain.”

Jack scoffed somewhere to his left. “You realize who you’re talking to, right?”

“I’m _not diseased_.”

His focus shifted to the other end of the bar, where Miles and Kerry were batting their lashes at each other over glasses filled with liquid bright enough to look radioactive. God, this town was small.

“But I thought you said you didn’t do relationships!”

Joel made a face. “I _don’t_. I’m.. it’s…” He fumbled around for a minute, swirling his glass and trying to come up with the right words, but eventually just set the glass down and accepted that he was backed into a corner. Or maybe painted up to be the clown of the table. Whatever.

“I’m not gonna say ‘it’s complicated’ because that’s the most clichéd fucking tag-on to a romantic situation,” he affirmed, holding up a hand when Kara started up again, “but, um… things are a little Daedalian at the moment.”

“I can confirm that does indeed mean complicated,” Caiti interjected with a grin. Joel simply looked up at the ceiling like he was expecting lightning to come through and strike one of them.

“You’re not sleeping with anyone else…” She raised a brow to turn the statement into a question, to which Joel nodded. “And it sounds like he isn’t, either. Do you talk to each other?”

Joel all but stared at her. “If you consider the kind of combative language that little hellion uses to be talking, then by all means, Doc, communication is booming,” he said drily.

“Sounds like a perfect fit for you.” She was practically radiating ‘I told you so’, and Joel was inclined to nail his head to the table in reply. “So congratulations,” she cooed, raising her beer, “you seem to be in a relationship.” She patted his hand gently as she swung her legs around the side of the booth, standing up and offering them a small salute. “I have to get back to work, but bring him around here sometime, okay?”

Joel shook his head. “Nephalist. I’ve heard many have tried and failed to show him the light.”

“The guy won’t drink?” She sent Joel an odd look. “You’re not chasing after a _minor_ , are you?”

He gave her a sweet smile tinged with the sharpest sarcasm right back. “Oh, you’re hilarious.”

“I’m just kidding. I’m sure we’d find something he’d like, though. It’s kind of my job.”

Jack nudged him in the arm teasingly. “Maybe he’s into older _brews_ , too,” he said, smiling innocently at the annoyed ‘tsk’ he drew from Joel. But the older man waved his hand in dismissal, shrugging passively. “Hey, I’m over it. You don’t have to wine and dine someone to make them like you, kids, believe it or not.”

Adam smiled. “How noble. What happened to champagne at weddings?”

“For one, champagne comes _after_ the vows, as these two are well aware,” Joel supplied, ignoring Adam otherwise and raising a glass to Jack and Caiti in front of his twist of a smile, “because people are more prone to believe the things you have the balls to tell them sober.”

“That explains why you’re washing your brain out with booze.”

Joel downed the rest of the glimmering contents of the glass, setting it on the table with a clink before sending him a smirk. “I drink to come up with a script. Keeps me from just kissing cigarettes.”

Kara smiled, finally standing. “Well, for however much stock you do or don’t invest in astrology, you’d better hope your guy is a sign that can keep up with a Virgo.” She collected the glass with a shake of her head, sending him a final look before waving to the group. “Heaven knows who else would put up with you.”

\--

Tonight was Thursday, the Championships were in a week and a half, and Ray couldn’t focus worth _shit_.

Burnie had been harping on him all evening, but between muscle memory and the fact that he ‘ _knew_ what he was doing, contrary to popular (at this point, words accompanied by an incriminating gesture toward Burnie, and a ridiculous face pulled) belief’, but thanks to the excitement of a new tournament in a new place with new faces and new techniques to spectate, Ray was on a cloud.

They’d taken a break for Burnie to disappear into his office briefly to rifle through papers and folders, ultimately returning with a printed schedule for the weekend and a plane ticket, but in the meantime, Ray had sprawled out on a nearby bench and picked up the conversations he’d missed in the past hour and a half, including a new one from Joel.

They had been seeing each other twice a week, sometimes more. Admittedly, what had started as a toss in the sheets had quickly jumped clear out of the vicinity of a one-time thing, landing instead amongst the likes of routine and ending up as the reason that Ray looked forward to his nights at home.

Nights that had ended with the television turned up loud and Joel’s head between Ray’s legs, his tongue moving like velvet on his skin and leaving Ray an absolute shaking mess from the moment he lifted his neck to see his cock sliding in and out of Joel’s slick lips; nights that began with dinner in the middle of the living room floor that one had prepared for the other, and continued after they’d knocked glasses over and sprawled themselves across the carpet instead. They’d had evenings that began from a conversation that had started long before, text messages exchanged by day to culminate in an invitation by night – occasionally even the other way around – and he was beginning to think that there was more to their rapport than whatever they’d initially expected, even if their preferred means of shared company (or shared laughter) was beneath their respective sets of sheets.

And yet every time he expected to roll over to be met with an empty bed, he was met with a warm set of limbs entwined with his own, and sleepy eyes that opened one at a time just to make Ray laugh; every time he’d managed to roll over after having his brains fucked out to set his alarm to wake him up the next morning, not daring leaving it to his circadian rhythm to get him up and out before Joel roused, he’d wake up with his face buried in sheets that smelled like heaven on earth and silence the alarm on the first vibration.

But on the occasions he’d woken up while Joel still lay asleep, he took it upon himself to wake him up the gentlest way he knew how. He figured he’d appreciate it, since he usually felt a hand run through his hair affectionately before Joel managed to gasp out a good morning. The fact that he repaid the favor from the night before made it taste even better, and hey, he certainly couldn’t say Joel never gave him breakfast in bed.

Michael had suggested the term ‘friend-with-benefits’ long before it was applicable, after their first bout with the word ‘friend’ had left Ray flustered and given the redhead his own gleaming victory, to his disdain. They weren’t _together_ , per se; certainly not together in the most conventional of ways, of course, but they were content in whatever it was they had, and for now – or at least, until one made an effort to turn it around – that was good enough for the both of them. No obligations, tons of company, and all deliciously experimental.

All this being said, though, Ray could admit at this point that there was something to the time they spent together, admitted that he’d mentally clocked himself out of practice and actually _improved_ as the stress began easing up, and by the time Burnie put two and two together when his routine finally began to smooth out, he figured there was no avoiding it.

“ _Ray_.”

“Mm?” Ray chewed on his lip idly as his thumbs paused over his phone’s keyboard, glancing up at his coach. He had his brows knit as he looked over the schedule he’d reviewed at least a dozen times in the past week since it had been released to the public, and Burnie seemed more nerve-wracked about it than he did.

“The _itinerary_ , you little shit. God, the hell’s gotten into you?” He sent Ray a quizzical look that was quickly betrayed by the way his lips twisted up at the corners. Putting a hand up when Ray took a breath to protest, he chuckled and shook his head. “Whatever it is – and for Christ’s sake, I hope it’s legal, because it’s working wonders – keep it up.”

The Puerto Rican snickered as he pulled his gloves back over his fingers, depositing his phone in his pocket and making his way back over to the rink. “Thanks for the support, coach,” he affirmed with a crooked grin. “And I promise it’s legal, even if just barely.”

Burnie dragged a hand across his face, sending his eyes skyward with a groan. “I don’t want to know. In fact, right now, all I care about is the triple axel you keep fucking up around the one-minute mark.”

Ray looked utterly scandalized, covering his mouth for effect and feigning a stumble backwards. Burnie looked like he was going to throw something at him.

Obviously, Ray took it as a victory.

But he simply laughed at Burnie’s seemingly bottomless irritability, foregoing the fist-pump in favor of shrugging his shoulders and sending a gaze good-naturedly toward the older man. “Go ahead and terrorize me into improving, Burnie, my mood’s in the sky.”

“Fine,” Burnie sighed finally, hoisting himself to his feet and leaning over the edge of the rink, straightening his cap. “Ready to go again?”

Ray clapped his hands expectantly twice from where he stood, motioning for the music to begin with a flash of teeth behind his grin, and Burnie barely managed to withhold a growl from escaping his throat when he pressed play.


	5. when can i see you again?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Joel "accidentally" forgets his hoodie at Ray's apartment, Ray makes a joke about his age that he pays for in full a few days later- oh, right, and those pesky Championships are about to begin.

Dial tones were the most uncertain thing in the universe, Joel was sure of it. Maybe a little more certain than the S&P 500, but both were full of unfounded theories out the ass that he never liked to listen to himself rattle off every time he was faced with one or the other.

One ring is the standard free space; no one answers on the first toll. He got out of his car and breathed in the cool air, making his way toward the steps leading up to Ray's apartment. Ring number two means their phone is nearby, but has the potential to sound anticipatory, he mused, climbing the first flight as the third sounded.

He stopped on the landing between flights in confusion. Jesus, when did he become this invested? He glanced out over the parking lot, furrowing his brows. This kid was going to turn him into a fucking teenager.

Luckily for Joel, however, the click on the other line diverted his train of thought.

“Hey, handsome.”

“Hi.” Joel resumed his climb when he heard Ray’s voice, trailing his fingers idly up the metal railing as he rounded the corner. “You busy?”

“I’m having a great time in my living room with a pause screen, actually. But to what do I owe the pleasure?”

He glanced at his bare arms, biting back a grin of his own as he reached the top of the apartment landing on his floor.

“I think I left my sweatshirt at your place. It’s cold as hell.”

And not surprisingly, Ray feigned naivety, but not enough to be entirely convincing.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, but even if I did, I’d probably say finders keepers.”

Joel paused when he stood in front of Ray’s door, frowning.

“Hey now, if you wanted it so bad, you could’ve asked,” he said absently, turning his gaze to the ceiling. A little ironic, considering he’d come across town without solid knowledge the kid was even home, and had opted to call him only upon pulling into his parking lot. On a Sunday afternoon, no less.

Fuck it. He passed it off on needing groceries.

Yet when he heard Ray’s smile over the phone, he wanted to reach through the receiver and wipe it off of him.

“That so?”

Or kiss it off of him. But if that was how he wanted to play it, he’d oblige him.

Joel raised his hand to knock at the door, but before he could rap his knuckles on the wood beneath the brass numbers, it swung open.

In fact, it swung open to reveal Ray, who was leaning against his doorframe in nothing but a hoodie that hung low enough on Ray’s hips to leave it up to his imagination whether anything was underneath. A hoodie which, Joel noted with particular interest as he tilted his head to investigate, was in fact the very article in question.

Ray started laughing at his blatant stare, crossing his arms in the sleeves that his fingers just barely poked out of. “You sounded like a fuckin’ bull tearing up my stairs,” he supplied, in reply to the slightly stunned look gracing Joel’s face.

“I’ll forgive the insult if you give back what you so cruelly took from me,” Joel said sweetly, amusement beginning to overtake the shock in his expression.

And Ray tapped his chin contemplatively to that, eyeing Joel carefully.

“Funny, it feels like I aged twenty years in the thing.”

He moved aside with a cackle as Joel gently grabbed him by the collar and towed him through the door.

\--

The next time Joel fucked Ray, he made a point to coax him into admitting the aging quip was total bullshit. Naturally, he succeeded with characteristic panache.

The sheets pooled around Ray’s waist as he pushed himself up from the mattress, groaning as his joints settled and tilting his head to the side to stretch. He inspected his arms wearily, offering the trace of a smile as he caught the line of dark marks forming on his shoulder that trailed down his front to scatter across his navel. Joel’s gaze followed his own from his place on the pillow, smiling triumphantly when Ray rolled his eyes. He let out a sigh before sending a dazed smile back, letting himself sink back to the blankets to extend an arm across Joel’s chest with a huff.

“So.”

“So?”

“So,” Ray murmured again, shifting to allow Joel to wrap an arm around his hips and tug him in close, “I’m beginning to forget which of these were my own fault, and which were yours.” He squirmed in Joel’s grasp as he settled on top of him, sliding his knees to either side of Joel’s waist.

“The bruises?” Joel pinched at Ray’s hips, earning a yelp which he met with a grin that showed teeth. “I’m appalled that you’d imply it. An argument could be made that they’re _all_ your fault.”

Ray bit his lip in thought, turning his eyes to the ceiling for a moment. “As if you have no self-control. You do, even if it’s all but microscopic.” He snorted when Joel sighed and shook his head, but his intake of breath quickly turned to a gasp when the older man flipped their positions and sent Ray sprawling on the bed beneath him with a _thump._

“You know, somehow I get the impression you don’t have a problem with that,” Joel breathed, pressing his nose to Ray’s neck and sucking the skin he found there between his teeth. Ray did his best to stifle a groan with a ‘not a bit’ that was a little more drawn out than he’d intended, and he felt Joel’s smile against his skin when he wrapped his arms around the man above him, letting him roll off to his side only once he was satisfied with the number he’d done on Ray’s neck. Admiring his work, Joel leaned back and ruffled Ray’s hair tenderly before he stretched out on the bed and discovered a few reminders of his own Ray had etched into his skin.

“Jesus, you’ve got some serious claws,” he hissed, wincing when hit the mattress and raising a hand gingerly to the back of his shoulder. “Feels like you took a rake to my back.”

“Well, consider it settlement for all the bruises I accumulated under your watch.”

“Certainly worth it.” He snickered before he hoisted himself upright, leaning against the headboard with a soft noise of minor discomfort upon contact. “And you caused yourself some glorious bruises, if I do say so myself.”

Ray smiled, but was content in the silence between them for the time being. They lay together for a while longer, basking in the morning warmth and dozing routinely before Ray spoke up again.

“So I have to leave town for a few days,” he murmured against Joel’s collarbone, from where he sat gathered up in his lap. He felt the older man shift as a breathy “oh?” reverberated from his throat against Ray’s shoulder, the soft fabric of his shirt and skin still warm from their sleep pressing against his chest, and if he’d thought about it any longer, Ray probably would’ve tried to stop the feeling of intense, unfamiliar warmth that was blossoming in his chest. So he nodded instead, offering a hum of affirmation as he sat up.

“Going anywhere fun?” Joel asked, moving to sit up with him as he pulled Ray’s hips in close. Ray smiled at the question, though, collecting his thoughts as best he could.

“Well, we’re hoping. Won’t be gone long, but will be gone.”

He’d hoped he hadn’t sounded too abrupt in his explanation (or perhaps, lack thereof), but if he was perfectly honest with himself in that moment, Ray was nervous. Not just for the competition, but for what would happen if he came back and Joel had seen him win. For what would change between them when they made the jump from average, every-day Ray Narvaez Jr. to a potential Olympic athlete, at least, or a figureskater with a name for himself. And that was _terrifying_.

What they had was still diffusing into something resembling a relationship – the overarching ‘something’ they’d decided to enforce therein, of course, and Ray knew a day would come where he’d have to tell Joel what he did, or at least that it wasn’t purely recreational. But until that day came, he was happy to have the bridging cables between his name and his career remain invisible.

To that, Joel looked vaguely contemplative, drawing a lip between his teeth in thought before his gaze drifted back to Ray’s own. Naturally, the younger lifted an eyebrow at that, because a thoughtful Joel, he was learning, either meant trouble or the gloriously unexpected. Or both.

He squinted down at him, though mostly in jest, and offered a brief, whispered and thoroughly over-the-top “ _what_?”, while the man simply looked back up at him with eyes at peace; humored, persistent, and donning his never-failing brightness.

“Well,” Joel started, tracing the folds of the blanket around Ray’s thighs absentmindedly, “maybe when you get back, you should let me take you out to dinner.”

Words proving unexpected, but certainly not unwelcomed.

He breathed an internal sigh of relief. Predicting the unpredictable, featuring a certain Joel Heyman.

“You sure?” Ray ventured back, cautiously allowing a smile to grace his features while Joel furrowed his own. “I had no idea I had a closet Prince Charming in my bed.” _Die trying, cheeseball,_ he thought to himself with an inward groan almost immediately after the words left his lips. He was grateful for the lack of a hesitation in the smile that broke out across Joel’s face after that, though, because it saved him from kicking himself out of bed and Joel himself the trouble. “I clean up nice, thanks, and this is _my_ bed,” he affirmed, jabbing Ray in the leg with an accusing finger. And to that, Ray rolled his eyes, muttering “technicalities” with a good-natured wave of his hand.

There was a moment of silence before Joel’s smile turned to a full-fledged grin. God, he looked good looking up at him like that.

“But I’m serious about taking you out. It’ll be…” He trailed off, pressing his lips together in thought before his face lit up again. “It’ll be a tiny, two-guy welcome back party.”

Ray bit back a smirk. “Gonna miss me, huh?”

A beat. Well, the pause he’d been expecting certainly picked a pesky time to show up.

Joel held his gaze in that moment, thinking heaven only _knew_ what, and at that moment, Ray for the first time genuinely wanted nothing more than to yank the words hanging ever-present in the air between them back into oblivion. It was a funny feeling, thoughts racing through his own mind at speeds so fast he wasn’t sure if time had slowed or if the silence had merely spun into something heavier on fate’s bitch of a loom, but all he knew was that either way, he was fucked.

“Yeah, I am,” Joel murmured at last, a contagious brightness in his eyes.

Fucked because he’d been hoping to hear it, and the simple affirmation felt so good when it graced his ears.

The words were soft, but radiated authenticity like warm coals. They were decisive, and didn’t exude hesitance or gilded promises like he’d been dreading, and fuck, Ray could’ve kissed him for that. Joel beat him to it, though, tugging him forward and pressing a gentle peck to his lips. It was strangely and distinctly void of the sensuality Ray had grown so familiar with, not dripping with thirst but instead filled with a particular kind of longing. One that seeped into his bones and rose to his skin in a deep flush he didn’t even bother willing away.

He kissed Joel back when a hand ran up his side, pulling him close without the catalytic physical tug forward. Snaking his arms around Joel’s neck, Ray moved his lips to kiss him on the cheek before leaning back and murmuring “okay” with a gentle smile of his own. He received a ‘good’ in reply that he heard and felt against his skin, but didn’t see; at least, not until he leaned back once more and ruffled Ray’s hair affectionately. “Tell me the minute you’re back, then.”

“You got it, boss.” He paused for a minute, positively leering when met with an inquisitive glance from the older man. “Am I gonna learn how much you missed me after dinner?”

Joel took a deep breath in before he pulled Ray flush against his chest, and Ray had to suppress a shiver when his voice dropped an octave against his ear.

“If you keep me from jumping you in the restaurant,” he said simply, moving his hands to Ray’s ass in a fluid movement with a quirk of his lips and savoring the yelp he pulled from the younger, “we’ll definitely see.”

\--

As expected, the day of their flight out to Boston for the Figureskating Championships snuck up on Ray, and he didn’t get a particularly ideal amount of sleep between scrambling to pack and the nerves that were twisting into knots in his stomach. Manageable and healthy stress, of course, but it threw a bit of a wrench in his morning awareness. At least he remembered to pack his fucking skates.

The drive to the airport was long and relatively silent. Burnie had picked Ray up to head to the airport early that morning, claiming that he could avoid the taxi fees if they took one car and that if he really wanted to tip the cabby, he could buy the two of them coffee when they got to the airport Starbucks. Once they arrived, however, Burnie ended up picking up the bill anyway after a brief (and relatively sleepy on Ray’s end) squabble before reaching a very amused barista.

He met Ray by a table nearby after they’d had their luggage checked, taking the seat across from him and sliding a Styrofoam cup toward him, steam curling up from the lid. Ray took it gratefully, thoroughly expecting bitter liquid to hit his tongue when he put the cup to his lips, but was pleasantly surprised when he was met with chocolate instead. He sniffed it once more, just to make sure, before sending Burnie a curious glance.

“Had them put a shot of espresso in it,” the older explained, eyeing the skater over his own lid with a smirk. “Christ, everyone on the goddamn planet has likely heard your squawking when it comes to coffee. No sense dropping four bucks on two polite sips.”

And Ray sent him a thankful smile in return, though it was tinged with sheepishness.

As it turned out, the flight fared swimmingly with all things considered, leaving surprisingly on schedule and arriving in Boston with minimal complications. Ray trudged into his hotel room in the middle of the afternoon exhausted from the night before, however, dumping his bag on his bed and flopping over on the comforter almost immediately.

His mind began sifting through the itinerary for the next few days practically immediately, though, and nerves overtook him quicker than he realized. _National championships tend to have that effect on people_ , he could practically hear Burnie affirming in that taunting tone he’d always use to get him motivated, but it didn’t do much to reassure him. So in an earnest attempt to remedy the situation, he took a shower, he watched mindless programming until late into the evening, and he even tried pacing up and down the hallway on his floor until a less-than-sympathetic guest gave him a thoroughly unfiltered piece of mind and sent him back to his room with a few choice words.

Skating was becoming more and more of his life energy than he’d expected, as it turned out, but he was beginning to realize he didn’t mind a bit. And though he was so far away from where he was finally beginning to call home, the thought of the newest addition to that positive energy had him biting back a smile even after he’d turned out his lights (at a semi-reasonable hour on Burnie’s recommendation-turned-mandate that afternoon, of course). For all the things that kept him going, Joel was working his way into his heart like he knew exactly what he was doing, and that should’ve been scary. Scary as hell, actually, and yet it wasn’t.

He’d wondered vaguely before he left if Joel had anyone else on the side aside from him, because he was certainly a looker, and could probably land whoever looked his way. The first few times they’d gotten together, it felt like a casual fling with potential feelings threatening to blossom into attachment, but Ray had been careful to mandate them well to avoid complications. 

That is, until the day he heard Joel coming up his stairs with no excuse other than to reclaim a hoodie he ended up leaving with Ray regardless. And _that_ was interesting, considering the fact that booty call generally didn’t show up while the sun still hung in the sky.

Intriguingly, the dinner conversation had happened a few days afterward.

Maybe he was looking into it too hard, Ray thought as he rolled onto his side, and maybe the idea of commitment past what had been expressly stated was a dangerous road to travel even with a driving companion, but some things just proved relevant to both parties’ interests, and to say they _only_ rid each other of sexual frustration would be a bold-faced lie. Especially since the only time he’d woken up alone after going to sleep in Joel’s company was the morning he was met with a second date.

So maybe he’d gotten used to the idea. And right now, that idea was the thing keeping him grounded; the glide to his runners, the lift to his jumps; not necessary, maybe, but it definitely made things easier. And he was content with that, the way things stood.

In fact, he was so content that he hadn’t realized his nerves had been quelled until he’d already drifted off to sleep that night.

There was a lot they’d have to talk about, and Ray knew that. They’d have to get to know each other better before semi-permanent and routine became something better, something more intimate and profoundly scarier than hooking up and kissing goodbye.

But they’d figure that out when they got there.

\--

Sixteen hours later, after hours of waiting and more waiting and practice rounds and even _more_ waiting, Ray realized that the “when they got there” might have arrived sooner than he expected, because if he had been expecting anything at all, he _certainly_ wasn’t expecting to see Joel perched at the judges’ table.


	6. with such a star-studded gambit, you left us floored

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Though the performer can't predict what might happen beyond the first moment - the one in which they are bathed in light for the first time, the sounds of the audience hitting their ears between the rapid beating of their hearts - they say that the most memorable moments are always their first and their final.

For agreeing to work another event for the Federation, Joel knew himself well enough to know he’d be disillusioned almost immediately upon arriving.

The Figureskating Championships asked retired skaters from the circuit to guest-judge each year, which was very likely a publicity stunt used to garner more of an audience presence in the stadiums, because big names from Olympics past tended to draw attention wherever they showed themselves. Joel had avoided the letters and emails for years, reveling in relative anonymity when he left the circuit on a high note and enjoying occasional bursts of attention from the public eye whenever he showed himself at charitable events or met up with his fellow Olympians from years past to give pep talks to the new teams, but all good things eventually had to come to an end. Ten years off the circuit was an honorable run, though.

The committee had sent him a very flattering letter via snail mail that ‘strongly urged him to consider participating’ (a phrase which he read as ‘if you don’t accept this time, you fuck, we’ll blackmail you into the next one’, he was versed in translating the jargon), and it seemed this year was finally his turn to give back. With a monumental scowl, he’d called that afternoon and begrudgingly accepted with _honor_.

Yet as expected, he was finally beginning to regret accepting the offer. And he’d actually tried to enjoy himself this time around, too.

At least the MCs seemed to find some sick amusement in his exhaustion. Or maybe he was particularly proficient at translating it as sarcasm, he was never sure.

He blamed how sour he usually tended to get when he was bored or otherwise uninterested. Or exposed to the too-much-of-the-mundane, not-enough-of-the-interesting atmosphere that tended to pervade iceboxes such as this. Thank god for newcomer prodigies and overzealous assholes that karma struck down on their ass, he supposed.

But for fuck’s sake, he mused bitterly, it was the _last_ fucking competitor in the division they were waiting on. Five minutes had never lasted for years like they did at the end of the goddamn day. He had to really resist starting on the guy’s scorecard early.

After all the swarming PR he’d had to bludgeon through to make it to the event on time, the cherry on top of Joel’s bitingly sarcastic notes that day was that they’d made him give up his phone. They blamed collusion, citing the rulebook and an overwhelming tendency to present bias in the face of serious competition – business as usual, he thought with a snort, people taking this shit too seriously – but he was convinced it was to dissuade him from playing any of those stupid bird apps into a self-induced coma.

This was the same bird every year, though, no matter how many bells and whistles they stuck on it, and especially regardless of who went. It’d been that way for years – decades, even, which was a fact he knew nauseatingly well – but he wasn’t on the ice anymore to be blissfully ignorant to that little fact. He, along with all the other judges, knew who would win, knew who wouldn’t, and knew who would be disappointed far before the day ended. That was how it usually went. And after three days of spending eight hours on his ass in a judging box, Joel was ready to get on with it. He’d been drinking from paper cups and flimsy water bottles for too goddamn long, and he was perfectly content in admitting the chair wasn’t exactly doing wonders for his horrible posture.

He smiled to himself when he realized he’d probably be sending Ray all kinds of snippy remarks had he actually _retained_ his phone. Better that the kid was saved from torrents of his irritability, which a particularly sassy interviewer had designated to be ‘alluringly caustic, and certainly reminiscent of his days on the ice’, to his chagrin. A story to tell when he flew back into Austin, no doubt.

Over _dinner_ , he remembered with a start and a faint flush to his cheeks.

Yeah. That _had_ happened.

The lights finally, _finally_ dimmed as a silhouette skated out to the center of the ice, and a familiar piece of orchestral music began to stream over the speakers. Joel vaguely recognized it as a piece from the Nutcracker, but he’d been tapping his pen since four skaters before, and at this point, he really just wanted to go home rather than marvel in choice of musical elements. Three and a half minutes, a few marks scrawled on his notecard, a stack of the damn things handed to the officials and he could get off his ass and out of the goddamn rink.

The judge beside him leaned back in his chair with a scoff when the music began to play, though. “God, this shit _again_?” he hissed. “Waltz of the Flowers? The fuck is with all these ballerinas trying to freeze their sport?”

Joel rubbed at his temples with the hand not presently wielding a pen, which may perhaps serve as a murder weapon in the future, he thought briefly, rolling his eyes in reply as the guy sitting to his left snickered.

But when the lights came back on, a number alongside a name was announced, and Joel’s tapping came to a screeching halt.

It would have been hysterically funny to witness, he thought to himself vaguely, the fragments of his all-embracing nonchalant manner fraying to bits amidst the gentle music of the harp at the beginning of the piece. He’d been through enough training sessions as a judge to have sufficient self-control to prevent his jaw from unhinging, but his eyebrows practically shot off his face when he saw who was standing in the middle of the rink.

He squinted at his scorecard in a brief moment of dubiety, but the paper read “Ray Narvaez Jr.” back to him matter-of-factly.

Barely managing to glance up at the skater standing before the panel and an audience of several thousand, the only word that was coming to Joel’s mind was _fuck_.

As the orchestral build-up finished and the piece began, Ray’s arms came down from his head like wings he’d unfurled, and took off like he’d been born to defy every law of physics and even more of the expected. For all the circuits he’d seen Ray do, Joel thought to himself, for the nights he’d tired himself out on the rink and even those in which Joel had the pleasure of seeing him bend (which he noted with a pang of not quite aversion), he’d never seen him like _this_. And to say he was captivated was a severe understatement.

The moments were fleeting; they had to be, since Joel knew in the back of his mind when Ray took off that the routine would last no more than five minutes, but every movement was captured. After a good while of staring, even after his widened eyes had somewhat returned to resemble someone of average investment, Joel had to remind himself to blink. Several times.

Ray’s movements were serene and streamlined together like liquid, flowing with the music and unfurling with each new development or change in direction, like smoke in the air. Each spin, every soaring glide and dip and jump caught the light refracted from the rink with panache, and he could’ve sworn the kid’s hands had turned to wingtips beneath the colored lights. There were moments where he tucked his leg behind his head and spun, executing each movement with a finite moment of suspension that Joel had to wonder if he was imagining, but each instance of clairvoyance was inevitably interrupted from a murmur to either side of him.

He could tell in the sweeping movements of his legs, the extended grasp of his arms and the movements of his back that he’d been practicing tirelessly, spirit spread as wide as he was and the lesson of perfection in repetition no doubt learned with zeal – confirmed, he thought, as well as he’d gotten to know the kid. He’d zip from one end of the rink to the other with no effort at all, the crescendo of the violins mirrored by the spin he’d executed, increasing sense of urgency filling every spiral, every axel, every fluid boundary where metal blades jumped like a spark from the icy strata to the cool air he’d momentarily suspended himself in, and not a thread of Joel’s entire being could possibly call it any less than breathtaking.

He’d known he was graceful, but holy _shit_. Every time he left the ice, spinning into the air, Joel’s eyes were glued to the motion; his gaze was as observant and marveling as it was curious, and every time it looked like there was potential to stumble or lose balance, Ray stuck the landing perfectly. He flourished to the audience a few times, keeping his gaze skyward while he spun and wide when he shifted his weight, and everything aside, it was gorgeous. Mesmerizing, like watching a music box, feeling the music and fluidity through one’s entire being and embracing the inability to tear one’s gaze away.

The occasional (and increasingly frequent) reactions from the audience were indicative that he wasn’t the only one with such sentiments, either.

But the piece ended quickly; perhaps _too_ quickly, as fleeting beauty never failed to manage. There was a smattering of applause the instant Ray had stuck the final note on the ice, extending his arms upward and outward as he glided to a halt. 

Joel stared in disbelief at the ice where Ray stood, looking back down at his blank, untouched page of notes, and up again, where he met Ray’s glance entirely on accident. It was unreadable from where he sat, lying perhaps between the respite of a routine finished – the way the stress that left muscles tense and aching would thaw and dissipate on the final note of a piece of music, yes, Joel remembered well – and the anticipatory, rosy-cheeked expression of a contestant waiting to be lifted to their pedestal or led to the gallows.

A judgment call that lay in the hands of himself and his peers, nonetheless.

He blinked a few times as the gears in his mind finally began to turn, and once they’d started, Joel began to put it all together piece by piece.

Perhaps _night by night_ might be a better descriptor.

The onset of a sudden realization happens much like dread, hitting the unexpected head-on like a freight train and leaving a bad taste in their mouth when they come around and realize what the conductor looked like. The kind of realization that ties conjecture into truth, and metamorphoses disbelief – utter, horrifying disbelief you wouldn’t look in the mirror to confront at 3 AM, _that_ kind of disbelief – into the desperate will to escape the premises and never look back to confirm one’s fears to be true.

And being a judge confronted with a less-than-ideal bucket of reality water didn’t allow much time for diplomatic circumvention. Certainly not when said bucket had been tossed in his face by the very contestant he was meant to judge.

But all he could think was that he should’ve fucking _known_.

Joel snapped out of his thoughts before the applause had even ended, tossing his pen on the table without a second glance at Ray. He swallowed all the questions pulling at his mind in favor of pushing through the door, not giving himself time to see the questioning glances of the judges sitting to his right – especially not time enough to see the reaction from Ray, who might have even left already for all he knew or cared – before he stood abruptly, grabbed his coat from the back of his chair, and bolted.

\--

After you’d been gliding over frozen layers of a glass made more organic and exhausted your routine, walking on earth of a more solid nature where feet fell and stuck was disorienting. Perhaps even more perplexing was the sensation of putting one foot in front of the other when your mind was stuck somewhere else, somewhere beyond the clouds and ceiling insulation. Certainly beyond the rink.

Ray had stepped off the ice and halted his body’s momentum before his mind managed to stop reeling, but the view he’d been met with when he’d finished his routine might as well have been seared into his line of sight, because he couldn’t stop seeing it and his mind refused to halt the replay haunting him like a skipping record. He’d stuck his finish, timed his pose to perfection and was met with an incredible response from the crowd, but the minute he’d turned to Joel and watched the color drain from his face when his expression changed from shock to fury, Ray’s temporary high hit the ice faster than he ever could’ve anticipated.

He’d pushed past the other contestants long enough to wrap his fingers around his guards, not even bothering to take a seat as he leaned against the rink’s walls and slid them onto the blades of his skates. Only staying long enough to hear the MC announce the time they’d be anticipating a resurface for the awards ceremony, Ray took off as soon as the audience stood to applaud the round’s contestants, ducking through the door beneath the stadium seats after grabbing a coat off a chair nearby and disappearing into the hallway.

He had to find him.

Judges didn’t just _leave_. They certainly didn’t look at him with that kind of relentless ire without a reason. Joel didn’t even say a word to the two sitting with him, he’d just gotten up and walked out, and if Ray had heard the door blow shut behind him, he knew with a sickened pang in his chest that it would’ve absolutely slammed. Whatever happened between the time he’d left his house and the moment he set foot on the rink to perform, he couldn’t be sure – but Joel was livid, he didn’t know why, and regardless of the sinking feeling in his chest, he had to find him.

The corridor was empty save for a few stragglers on their cell phones or lining up for the restroom. Ray wasn’t entirely sure where he was going, certainly not where to start looking, and perhaps not even as to whether to begin a search at all, but he found himself jerking his head in hopes of catching a glimpse of Joel in every room he passed, and around every door he watched swing shut. Poking his head around a curtain separating the staging area from the performers section, he was met with a flood of faces he’d never seen before, and his heart sank.

He managed to make it into the lobby-bound corridor outside the rink’s seating before his pace quickened into a jog, rapidly increasing as he saw smoke curling skyward from behind a concrete pillar, just outside a set of glass double doors.

And as for the voracity with which he barreled through the set of doors, well, Ray simply called it making an entrance.

He’d hardly made it outside, however, before he was met with a sharp set of once-familiar eyes and a glower that made the temperature drop ten degrees. Joel stared at Ray with a gaze of stone for a minute, and it felt like he’d plunged a dagger into his chest. And god, it ached.

“Joel,” he started, words leaving him in a flurry of feathers and culpability no sooner than he’d begun. He really had no idea where to start, what to say – hell, what there even _was_ to say – but he knew he had to say something.

But when he took another breath, Joel held a hand up, cutting off Ray’s words before the thoughts managed to fully leave his lungs.

“I have nothing to say,” he asserted icily, flat tone escaping his lips around his cigarette. “Thought I made that _crystal_ clear.”

Ray ran a hand through his hair and dropped his fingers to his jaw with a short huff, contemplating how to condense every thought swarming angrily through his mind into a digestible sentence. He wanted to scream at him, tell him every emotion that ripped through his core when he saw him toss his pen in the air and fucking _leave,_ but eloquence escaped him in favor of brevity.

“You walked out.”

And he sounded so _weak_.

Joel turned to him, expression bewildered. Maybe even exasperated. But before he even opened his mouth, Ray knew from the feeling in his chest, the one that felt like he was a vat of tar about to boil over, he wasn’t going to like what he had to say.

And with an incensed strain in his voice, the words Joel growled out without a second’s hesitation certainly delivered.

“I have _standards_ , Ray.”

Ray looked utterly baffled. “What the hell is that even supposed to _mean_?”

Joel took a drag and let the smoke curl from his lips before he laughed – a short, abrupt, and hardly humored one, at that – and sent him a crooked, knowing glance of once-amusement that had dimmed to a level of cynicism that left his lips as caustic as flame, filled with virulence.

“You wanted me to fuck you so you’d win.”

Ray went as rigid as a board when the accusation hit his ears, not only because it wasn’t true, but because it came straight out of the clear blue sky. And he hadn’t expected it at all.

His brows furrowed in confusion, because that was all he knew to do. It was certainly better than letting himself crumble like his nerves were threatening.

“Joel, what are you-”

But Joel cut him off with a mirthless laugh and a shake of his head, holding up a hand again to silence any further explanation. “You know, I’ve been played for an idiot before, but I have to give you credit for an exemplary bluff. You apparently did your research.” His tone was final, and he sent Ray a glance that seared with indifference. “Thanks for making me realize I should’ve stayed on my toes.”

His words hadn’t ever managed to sting like they did just then – they didn’t roll off Joel’s tongue like they had in times past, didn’t hold hints of laughter or soft notes of encouragement, but hit Ray’s ears like the sickening, metallic reverberation of a car wreck. And oh god, did it hurt.

The look in Joel’s eyes didn’t spell out joking, either, and he didn’t even have to spit the words out with venom for Ray to take a step back. He swayed on his feet for a minute before he managed to yank words from the thought processes swarming pitch-black and angry in his mind.

“Do you think I’d stoop that low?” he seethed, hurt and certainly ready to bare his fangs, fingers itching to curl into fists. “Joel, I had no fucking idea who you were until they announced it, you didn’t exactly make a point to tell me.”

Joel all but gaped at him. “If it were really that big of a fucking secret, do you _really_ think I’d have made a name for myself as a competitive skater?”

Well, he had a point.

“And  _you_?” he continued. “You thought you could get in my bed and slack off with practice, thought you could worm your way into my fucking life a little early and ensure your goddamn victory today like a  _safety net_? Thought I’d be so taken with you that you’d drop your pants and I’d drop every fucking standard I’ve ever known in return?”

They were both on their feet at that point, Joel had launched himself off the wall and stepped up to the very angry Ray before him, who was standing his ground as if he were two feet taller than the older man. He had opened his mouth to say something, even took in a breath, but the words just wouldn’t come to his lips. So Joel took advantage of the opportunity instead.  

“I bet you expected to come here and get the lay of your fucking life, didn’t you?” Joel hissed, malice dripping off his lips like poison. “Wanted to blow me under the judges’ table and take your medal with a fucking _limp_.” He shook his head, sneering in spite of his anger before turning his eyes to the sky. “I can’t believe I didn’t see that coming from a mile away.”

“Maybe because that wasn’t what I was doing, wasn't what I _wanted,_ Joel,” Ray grit out. The implications of what he’d said cut to the bone, but he wasn’t about to stand there and swallow it. “God, if you only fucking knew.”

“If _I_ knew? Do I have to spell this out for you?” Joel paused, dropping his penetrating gaze back to Ray as he took a step forward. “You realize I could get booted from doing this ever, _ever_ again? I’d lose my reputation, my credentials, my eligibility to judge and the respect of my friends, all for _what?_ ”

Ray couldn’t take it anymore, and the way Joel had looked at him when he’d uttered the final word was the straw that made him break.

“Are you just going to refuse to listen to me?” Ray had said it with an ache in his voice that clung to his ire, but he didn’t anticipate how much of a sob escaped between his words instead, and fuck, he hated how wrecked he sounded. Hated it almost as much as he felt.

“You think I hadn’t been practicing my ass off, that I hadn’t been a nervous wreck about this for months? That I didn’t tell you because it was part of some grand plan?” Ray’s voice was trembling, but at this point, he was focusing his energy on keeping his legs steady as opposed to his voice.

But Joel was evidently finished. Inhale, exhale, no answer. He’d put his cigarette between his lips and turned on his heel, walking to the edge of the concrete where sidewalk darkened to asphalt that glittered in the setting sun, and hadn’t even sent him a second glance in the process. It only took a few minutes of that agonizing distance, feet turned to miles and expanding by the second, before Ray called his name again and he spoke up at last.

“What can I say, Ray?” Joel finally replied, back turned and words calmer, but the rancor was apparent in the way his voice was raised. “You don’t have to backpedal anymore. I’m no stranger to deceit, but whether it’s skating or rushing into shitty explanations, you’re a damn good performer.”

There was something threatening to catch in Ray’s throat, but he was too infuriated to care about the way his voice nearly cracked. Taking a breath in, he shook his head to grasp at any clarity left in his mind before he looked at Joel with a piercing stare, glower very nearly radiating palpable heat in the wake of his anger, and he spoke, strangled and bitter.

“I’m not letting you call me a fucking liar, Joel, especially since you’ve never called me _anything_.”

Nothing other than his name.

It was ironic, he thought to himself, when Joel didn’t even react. Ironic that it was true, ironic that it didn’t feel like it until now, and most of all, that the realization might have just hurt more than Joel’s accusation. If he was nothing, here he was, caught up in the emptiness of that nothing like a moth in the glow of a porch light, dim and unassuming.

He didn’t look at Ray when he tossed his cigarette butt in the snow, didn’t even send a glance when he moved past him and his fingers curled around the handle on the door, but he sent a terse string of words back as his reply before the door swung shut.

“Deserve tons of awards, but none from me.”

 


	7. did all those beautiful things that left your lips mean a thing?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The competition draws to a close, and to the chagrin of the reporters, Ray and Joel are nowhere to be found.

There were only a handful of times Ray remembered ever getting so anxious that he got sick.

One of them was when he was in high school. The first day he’d gone to an invitational tournament out-of-state, in fact. Much like recent times, he’d practiced tirelessly with Burnie for weeks, and by the time the day came that he’d wake up to catch a flight (and miss school in the process), he’d instead laid awake all night counting the ceiling tiles and willing his heart rate back down to a not-so-staggering pace. Makes for poor travel arrangements when you’re running on two hours of sleep from an accidental nap, no doubt, but that morning, Ray had rolled out of bed and his stomach was tied in a hundred different kinds of knots. He’d walked around in a daze for about twenty minutes before the knots started tightening, constricting within him like the chaos in his mind, and he ended up clutching the toilet bowl like an AM hangover ritual. And god, wouldn’t _that_ have made life easier?

There were a few – no, there were a _lot_ of things that Ray had learned about Joel in the months they’d spent in not-quite-together limbo, and no matter how much he tried to rid them from his mind, they had a peculiar way of sneaking back in. Life had left its mark on both their bodies, and as fate would have it in all the discussions of bruises black and blue, they’d learned something about one another.

In the warmth that a few contentedly sleepless nights had to offer, Joel had told him stories about himself through the words that left his lips, but he’d woven tales with the memories Ray could run his fingertips over, too. He told him about his scars and his tanlines while leaving others for Ray to ponder, and then there were the things that were so uniquely Joel that Ray maintained quite a bit of peace of mind in _not_ knowing the stories. When he laughed, his eyes crinkled around the edges, and the cold exterior shell he liked to put up to hold him together positively melted. He had marks and bruises Ray had asked about, but he’d responded with a sly smile and eyes bright enough to challenge Ray to choose his own story to go with the shapes. And Ray was happy to absorb it all with his hands, the delicate armor separating the living, breathing, _beautiful_ creature from the world they knew.

The world they shared, in fact, especially since they took part in each other’s bruises.

Well, they _had_.

When Ray had watched the door swing shut after Joel, it took him a minute to register everything that had happened, and it left a confused ache in his chest when he did. He figured the feeling would leave after too long, that it was just the heat of the moment getting to him, and that he’d be able to brush it off; hell, he figured he’d forget the words they’d exchanged when he stood on the platform that afternoon and took fourth place overall to the cheers of an audience, he figured that if he’d forget the way Joel’s eyes burned into him like the smoldering end of one of the cigarettes that hung from his lips when he left the rink, but most of all, he figured he wouldn’t feel so profoundly _empty_.

Tonight marked an evening so anxious that Ray had to steady himself against the glass door of the shower back in his hotel room for a half hour once he’d managed to make it back up and pull the door shut behind him. The unease had him dry heaving in no time, the words from earlier setting in on a stomach he’d purposely kept empty from stress, and continued to keep empty from all that followed. He had no idea what he was supposed to do from here, but he knew staying in place would make things fester and rot into something so much worse.

So once he’d picked himself up from the unforgiving tile gripping at his aching knees, he did what he was getting quite good at – he ran.

He took solace in the mechanical sounds of the metro from growing up in the city, so he’d ducked into the first red-line train he found in the tunnels beneath the busy streets, and he rode well into the evening. He stared out the window and watched the harbor go back and forth across his line of sight, letting the jerked movements of the train car lull him into a state of undisturbed placidity that didn’t let up until the sun began to set.

The words from earlier washed over him in all the moments he wouldn’t have expected, and it stung at him like something toxic. And he _hated_ it.

He hated the fact that he’d opened up a draft message to send to Joel about twelve times that evening, each time staring at it for a good minute before sliding his phone back into his pocket and pinching the bridge of his nose in defeat. He hated that every time he thought he had something to say – _an apology?_ he wondered _, something he’d inevitably try and reel back right after pressing send?_ – the words left his mind completely and didn’t even bother kissing him goodbye. He hated that he aimlessly walked the streets of Boston once he’d left, making his way across grey pavement and through intersections without heeding a second glance to the traffic signals, hoping he’d run into Joel somewhere along the way, though knowing full well he wouldn’t.

He wanted to start over. No pretenses, no truths glossed over to make the process easier, no fronts. His heart rate began to pick up within his chest when he started to consider it all, wondering why Joel hadn’t told him who he was in the first place, and subsequently questioning why he didn’t tell him who _he_ was, too. He was young and idealistic, he supposed, like Burnie had always said, eager to show people what he was made of as long as the time and place agreed. But with Joel, it had never been about showing off; no, it had been about the things beyond the rink, the things that made them just Ray and Joel, not Ray Narvaez Jr., almost-professional figureskater, and Joel Heyman, _monumentally_ professional figureskater.

And it was at this point, Ray realized with an ache thrumming in his chest, that his lack of discussion on the topic with Joel had resembled precisely the kind of subterfuge in which he was trying to avoid himself, too. He tilted his head back to hit it on the window in an act of self-chastisement during his moment of clarity. God, he felt like a fucking idiot.

He dragged himself across concrete landing after landing once he left the subway, eventually resurfacing from within the tunnels and heading back to his hotel once his legs were too tired to take him any further. He pushed through the crowds of nightlife surrounding the bars around the area, vaguely remembering that he didn’t have to be up for a flight until mid-day, but finding no reason to stay out. And between the walking, the stress, and the empty stomach, he was _exhausted_.

It was by chance that Burnie found him that night when he made it into the hotel, slipping into the elevator next to him from the lobby on his way up to their floor, but it was something else that had him pulling Ray into a hug even before the doors slid closed. Ray had managed himself pretty well through the whole afternoon and evening, meeting friendly gestures with a friendly smile but nothing more, and yet something about the lack of hesitation on Burnie’s part made Ray’s heart lurch again, wracked with sentiment after a long night of thinking.

“Have you been out too?” Ray murmured into his shoulder after a while, prompting Burnie to nod.

“Yeah, they had a cocktail bar for some of the skaters on the circuit formerly, so apologies in advance if I smell like olives.” He craned his neck to look at the younger, whose eyes had dulled with exhaustion but still listened as intently as ever, but his instinct to worry kicked in immediately. “Are you alright?”

A nod, followed by a smile that looked more like a grimace. Neither of them sat well with Burnie.

“ _Hey_ ,” he said, looking Ray in the face with an expression equally as serious as it was compassionate. “You were really, _really_ great. Not many people can compete on a pro circuit for the first time and walk away with pewter.” He pulled back from where he gripped the younger’s shoulders endearingly. “I know you well enough to see you’re not thrilled with anything but first place, but hell, you should be proud, competing in the top tier and making it that far.”

Ray forced a better-looking smile this time. “Thanks. And I’m good with it, honestly.”

But unsurprisingly, Burnie looked thoroughly unconvinced. “You were gone all afternoon,” he said flatly, crossing his arms and looking at him with the pointed look he’d always used to dispel Ray’s hyperbolizing as a kid. “And from the looks of it, you wanted it that way. Don’t mean to jump to conclusions, but that doesn’t seem ‘good with it’ in my book.”

Ray might as well have sighed at the sight.

“The scoring felt generous, but really, I’m _fine_ ,” he sighed, waving it off and shoving the feeling of anxiousness pooling in his stomach back where it came from. _Yeah, that’s all._

Burnie shook his head, and Ray wondered momentarily if he’d seen through the lie. “If you want my opinion, you did _better_ than they scored you, but that’s something we can look into later. If you need your space, that’s fine, but at least tell me what I can do.”

As he looked from one eye to the other, Ray wanted desperately to tell him everything, explain it all from start to finish and ask him what the fuck he did wrong, where he could’ve done things differently, because if anyone knew the answer, it had to be Burnie with all his been-there, done-that, right?

But he couldn’t.

The words and the eloquence had been knocked clear from his lungs the moment Joel left the rink. And he wanted to drown himself in the silence that hung in the air as long as it provided solace from the thoughts running through his mind.

So he shook his head, managed another half-hearted but decidedly final ‘really, coach, I’m _fine’_ , and judging from the way he nodded, Burnie must have bought it. Or understood, at least.

The elevator pinged as they reached their floor, and they walked the rest of the carpeted distance to their neighboring rooms in silence. They stopped and glanced at each other, Burnie saying something about remembering to check out by ten the next morning, but Ray’s gaze was stuck on the floor. It looked like Burnie was lost in thought for a moment when Ray was feeling through his pockets, but before the older man managed to get through the door, he spoke up quickly.

“Hey, Burnie?”

“Yeah?”

“If you met someone that didn’t know you were a skater, would you, uh…” He trailed off, swallowing the lump in his throat and trying his best to shake off the heaviness on his shoulders, but the more he tried, the tighter its constricting hold became. “Would you act as if you weren’t one? You know, like you hadn’t… as if you weren’t ever…?” Cutting himself off discontentedly, Ray rubbed at his forehead as the rest of his breath left him in a sigh. He wasn’t even sure on whose behalf he was asking, anymore, and the thought of the other instance in mind – the other _person_ in mind, the one that mattered in this particular moment of time, he thought, chastising himself for lingering – felt like his mind was filling with lead that poured down to pool in his chest, and god, was it heavy.

But Burnie turned from where he stood by the door, letting his hand swing back to his side from where he’d grasped the handle. He thought for a minute, glancing up at Ray finally with a shrug.

“People have their reasons for keeping their secrets,” he said softly, offering a gentle smile. “And it depends on the person, but sometimes it’s best to let people get to know you beyond your career, you know?”

Ray nodded, breathing in deep and hoping the smile he offered back didn’t look as fake to Burnie as it felt on his face. But whether he’d believed it or not, the older man opted to leave him alone. He drew his key from his pocket instead of pressing the subject, sliding it into the lock and pushing the door open with a hip.

He paused before he left the hallway, though, turning in the doorway to face the younger. There was something Ray couldn’t quite put his finger on in the look on his face, but whatever it was, he felt the sincerity in the coach’s words.

“Don’t forget that there’s more to you than the ice.”

\--

Hell-bent on not putting his evening to waste after the programming of the day, both planned and impromptu, Joel did what any self-respecting 40-something year old would do under the circumstances on a Friday night: he ransacked the mini-fridge sending him bedroom eyes from across his hotel room, turned on the Food Network, and proceeded to get wasted off his ass once the clock struck twelve. 

Correction, he thought to himself as he rolled over from where he lay on his bed and saw 2 AM swimming dangerously in his squinted vision, _very_ wasted.

He’d been pacing the entire evening after he left the rink, realizing he risked wearing out his soles only after an hour of burning tracks into the carpet of the hotel where the afterparty – a modern name for a flashy event honoring veterans that exited the circuit years ago, full of Botoxed former skaters, coaches and a few straggling roadies – had been held. So he ducked out of the party and out of sight, still barely clinging to wretched sobriety, and made the split-second decision in the elevator to grace his flight home the next day with a venerable hangover.

And if the way he’d flopped onto his bed after an hour of picking the labels off the travel-sized bottles said anything, he’d certainly started out with a bang.

The worst part about this was how familiar the situation felt, how reminiscent of the past that all this was when it hit his senses after he’d left the competition. He went back to answer the questions from the panel of judges only because he _had_ to, to tell them he was abstaining from judging this round, and to consult one of the back-ups to make up for his score. Yet when he watched the aide leave to deliver the results to the MCs that afternoon, results that let Ray take fourth place that evening at an award ceremony he didn’t bother attending, something in his chest might have stirred if he hadn’t been busy trying to duck past cameras and get to his car.

He decided to make a game of it, a drink raised high for all the times he thought back to his past. Hell, he always _had_ made a game of it. So he started off with a tight grip on a bottle and several more on deck, pulling off his tie and depositing it carelessly on the floor as he toasted cable television. 

He _hated_ that Ray reminded him of himself and days gone by, days of his youth where he was so desperate for the spotlight that he’d left everything he’d known for the sake of the temporary he thought he wanted, though he’d certainly not tried to rope any judges into it. His career had offered a very comfortable life to live, or so he’d thought – he’d live in the spotlight, chasing his dreams by day and letting it all go at night, and there wasn’t a thing that would come back to bite him in the ass that he couldn’t facilitate with booze and a bed that only had room for two until morning came. Right?

At least, that’s how he thought it would all work when he started doing well. _Really_ well, actually, well enough that he was advised to give up on the idea of a permanent companion unless it was a partner to skate with. 

Another drink.

Becoming a minor celebrity certainly had its perks. It was fantastic for the personality from which he’d built a name for himself, of course, giving more grandeur to the name he’d been born with than his peers on the circuit could boast (to the chagrin of his teammates, a few of which he really loved to rile up) by way of the hubris he really only wielded for show. But show dogs had their fun, in their own rite. Joel wouldn’t deny the thrill he took from lifting his hands halfway through his routine to hear the audience absolutely lose their minds, didn’t contest the fact that he blew kisses at his rivals just to piss them off, and certainly wouldn’t argue with all the sensationalism in the news that called him the cockiest guy on two legs to compete with the US Olympic Figureskating Team. He’d snorted into his coffee the first time he’d heard them call him something the broadcast technicians had to bleep out on public television (he swore he read ‘sex on ice’ on their lips, but he figured he’d give them the benefit of the doubt) and he embraced every title he received.

Another drink.

Figured that he was starting to hit the self-loathing phase of the evening, he observed with a grimace after he fell off the bed and forsook his grace.

For all the perks, his career had bitter moments, too. He remembered the day well when he’d landed a cute groupie from a nightclub whose eyes burned with something he thought to be entirely indescribable, kissing him from the back seat of the taxi all the way to press him up against the wall of the elevator in his hotel. It was perfect; he was young, they were gorgeous, they’d stayed pressed together and exhilarated to the nth degree from the moment they “met”, but the night ended with a harsh cap over the flame when he turned his back to fish a key card out of his pocket and saw their camera flash from behind him. Needless to say, he slept alone.

Another drink for déjà vu, Joel thought bitterly, and another for the instances in which a similar course of events had happened after that – all the times he’d get interested, maybe even stick around long enough to convince himself they were, too, but leave infuriated once he found out that his name was what they were after – a number for which he’d convinced himself he had lost count, but ultimately learned from. Or so he thought.

He realized that he _really_ hated the smell of hotel soap on a morning he woke up with his nose buried in the neck of a skater he’d met during practice at a previous competition, probably seeking them out a third or fourth time in an attempt to find someone from his world, he considered with a burst of laughter. They’d accepted his offer, he was convinced it wasn’t for the novelty of fucking a celebrity since they maintained a pretty big name too, though he couldn’t remember now what it was. All he remembered was the scent of that fucking soap they’d used in the shower the night before. It wasn’t unique in the slightest; it would’ve been the same for anyone he’d let into his room that night or any other, would’ve stuck to the skin of anyone to which he’d drawn near enough to smell. Impersonal, short-term and in passing enough to be considered fucking _transitory_ , and absolutely reeking of that stupid fucking hotel-soap perfume.

It was a ridiculous association, sure, but those piece-of-shit amenities dressed in soggy paper held everything he loathed about his job, and even managed to get that sense of loathing to pervade the senses: it was all so _temporary_. Aside from the subject of sex, which certainly was, the victories hanging in the mind of the public as well as his own _a fait accompli_ were, too, and though he could forget the names and the words whispered into his skin he knew they’d both overlook by morning, he couldn’t forget what hung around afterward, what ended up proving recurring. The booze and the taste of his hangovers, the _familiarity_ of the lye and that absurdly cheap fragrance that clung to himself and whoever he woke up in bed with; it all stuck around too long for his tastes.

Another drink, because _fuck_ hotel soap, and another several for good measure, because at this point, his skin was tingly and his train of thought was fading to a blurred gradient.

But as he buried his face in the sheets after he made it back up onto his mattress, he gave up on condoning the past like he’d given up on his sobriety, because for all his time spent trying to reason through the events of the day and to convince himself _not_ to think about the reason he lay upside-down on his bed watching cooking shows and hardly paying attention to any of them, he realized that for the first time in a long time – or maybe all the time that mattered – he was alone again. And no matter how hard he’d try and forget it, of all the things he wanted at that moment, feelings of anger and betrayal and subterfuge he’d tried to wash away with alcohol aside, god, he _really_ wanted to stop wanting Ray.

As hard as he tried to keep his mind on how the hotel conglomerate would be learning his wallet’s name by heart if he consumed any more fucking alcohol, it was too appealing to tip the bottles to the sky when that name crossed his mind, so he’d indulged gratuitously. He scowled to himself upon the realization that he was acting like a broken-hearted twenty-something, but kept the rim between his lips when the image of the prideful little fuck were replayed in his field of sight, courtesy of the booze. For all the instances in his youth he’d been deemed flighty, he thought to himself, betrayal like this never made it any easier to flip the stereotype. Even if he wanted it to.

But holy hell, and he let out a supremely exasperated noise at the thought, the bane of his evening _did_ look fantastic earlier. Maybe it was the gin permeating his thoughts more than anything, maybe even nostalgia, but god _damn_ , that kid could move.

Certainly could move when he was underneath him.

His eyebrows furrowed at that. He really wasn’t this petty unless he had alcohol and unaddressed tension pent-up and something that smelled suspiciously like heartache in his system. He wouldn’t admit to the heartache.

Great, back to square one.

Ray _had_ to have known he looked good, though, how else would he have pulled Joel’s strings to get him to do what he wanted? He saw the way he held the sides of the rink before he pushed off, and he hated the way the kid looked like the best dancer in the company, movements fluid and curves arched and legs that went on for _miles_. It almost seemed impossible how acquainted he’d become with that body in fact, he thought bitterly, because it just wouldn’t escape him.

He clutched the sheets on the bed tight when his professionally-executed roll nearly deposited him on the floor again, and groaned aloud when the subtle crinkling of fabric around his fingers brought back images of a dimly lit bedroom, a younger man moving like liquid beneath and around him. He relinquished his grip with a huff as his arm slid from the bed’s edge and his fingertips brushed the carpeted floor instead, fishing around briefly for the bottle of whiskey he’d left there not too long before. After all, when temporary forgetfulness is a poison of choice that comes pre-bottled, why not indulge?

Rolling onto his back, he was confronted with the realization that his skin was quickly heating up, his blood was flowing beneath his veins, and he was filled with the kind of energy that Ray gave him with every shared breath. Oh _god_ , he thought to himself as swirls danced like flame beneath his eyelids, this wouldn’t end well. His body was reminding him how trashed he was at this point, second only to how hard he was, but in his state of mind, throwing caution to the wind was getting increasingly easier.

He traced a finger idly along the front of his dress pants, splaying into four fingers’ worth of contact once he realized that heat was pooling in his crotch, and quickly spiraling into a series of well-timed strokes behind fabric tugged aside for the occasion before he could register it as a terrible, horrible idea. But hell, he was plastered and his dick was standing at attention, so the ‘bad’ part of bad ideas was secondary to innovation.

In fact, as he quickly came to realize behind parted lips and flushed cheeks, he didn’t have to innovate alone. And thankfully, Drunk Joel had learned long ago how to suppress the voice in his mind that threw up red flags at a moment’s notice of such an idea.

The grip on his cock didn’t waver as he fished his iPhone from his pocket, despite the fact that it took a few tries to coax the fabric into releasing the device. Squinting at the illuminated display, he thumbed through numbers and contact names for which he didn’t bother offering up a meaning until he reached Ray’s name, but his anger came back as soon as he saw the letters glaring back at him from his screen. Instead, he opted to scroll back up.

He paused in his efforts near the top, and pressed a name he knew he couldn’t convince himself he’d forgotten; a name whose owner he’d happened to narrowly avoid earlier. A name whose owner he hadn’t spoken to in a very long time, in fact, which was a realization he greeted with a sly smile. His brain quickly latched onto the possibility like a wanderer on a train car, and hell, the farther he got from the alcohol and the negativity, the better. Never a better excuse for a chance to kiss and make up.

So Joel pressed the green button, held his phone to his face, and was in the process of balancing the touchscreen on his nose before the fourth ring was cut short by the sleepy, annoyed voice that answered.

_“What in ever-loving **hell** do you-”_

“Remember that time we went to France,” he slurred against the speaker, cutting him off mid-sentence to his own delight and his conversation partner’s apparent chagrin, “that you let me fuck you with the windows open?”

He heard Burnie’s lips press into a thin line, and he doesn’t bother the giggles that erupt from his own.

_“Is there a reason for this call?”_

Joel nods and grins lasciviously through the haze in his mind. “I wanna do it again.”

_“Joel, I can practically smell the booze on you. Get your shit together and let me go to **sleep**.”_

The way Burnie says his name sounds nothing like the way he’s grown so fond of hearing it, and that alone sent a jolt of _something_ through Joel’s chest, something he couldn’t identify in his drunken stupor, but definitely didn’t like.

“Come on, help me, _fix_ me,” he cooes, “I’m _dying_ here,” and fuck if he didn’t sound desperate, but Joel Heyman wasn’t one to care about desperation in the presence of decent liquor, an increasingly demanding erection, and an otherwise empty bed. And he was undeniably a proactive man, if nothing else, so he was doing his best to remedy all of them without thinking too hard.

As it stood, however, he was doing his best to _not_ palm himself through his dress pants, there was hardly enough scotch left to wet the bottom of the bottle, and despite the man on the other line, he must have really been a masochist, because the only thing on his mind was the guy whose smile had imprinted itself on his eyelids.

_“It’s late, you’re drunk, and judging by **how** drunk you sound, I wouldn’t come near your floor even if I wanted to.”_

He pressed a thumb to his closed eyes at the thought in an attempt to drown himself in phosphenes, gritting his teeth as sober memories threatened to prick their way into his consciousness. Temporary insanity was what he was blaming, that and booze and testosterone. Because as long as he had something to blame that didn’t smile at him, he didn’t have to feel so angry.

“ _Burns_ ,” he purred against the phone’s screen, “come on, don’t you remember how much fun we had back then? How bad we wanted it, how _loud_ you got?” His tongue was heavy and his vocabulary was reduced to the point of shame, but his dick was aching and the words he was warbling were coming out faster than his mind could catch up with.

And whether Burnie read between the lines of Joel’s babbling, he couldn’t be sure, but the sigh on the other end of the line after a long pause – well, it didn’t seem long to Joel’s mind, stunted by liquor and heavy like his eyes – was telling.

_“I know I’m talking to a wall, but it’d be less of a headache for us both if you go beat off, watch a pay-per-view, and pass the fuck out. Feel free to change the order.”_

It’d be better if he had a certain skater to pass out in his arms with, and Burnie never did fit the profile. They’d decided that a long, long time ago.

Something pesky was pulling at the threads holding Joel together, and he was starting to really feel it. Something that felt like anger or guilt or even dread – maybe he really _shouldn’t_ have had indulged in half the fucking mini-fridge – was playing chromatics on his heartstrings that practically droned in his ears, but he was too drunk to sort it out or shoo it away, so he opted to simply lay there.

A sigh.

A swish of a long-empty bottle.

One last quick groan against the touchscreen, directed moreso at the situation at hand as a whole than his current choice of conversation partner, but nonetheless, Burnie met the noise with a resounding _“go the **fuck** to sleep, Heyman, and god, just… sort yourself out in a way you won’t regret come morning.”_

If he were younger and hadn’t been in love despite love lost a few times – a few mistakes, he corrected, and otherwise lessons learned alongside long nights and longer mornings – he’d die to throw away all his resentment and drown himself in Ray’s _everything_ again, because Ray had turned drowning into saving before Joel could even consider a protest.

But he wasn’t a kid anymore, and he _had_ been in love before, having learned well from the first time and all the times after in which he vowed he’d never fall again, so he knew he’d fall back into his skin in a matter of time no matter how painful the present might be.

Right now, though, the present made his head swim and his joints ache, and for the first time in quite a while, Joel was _tired_. He was sick of the warmth of established relationships that he’d tried so hard to make work when he was young, enveloping the unsuspecting like warm water that inevitably chilled into a lukewarm nightmare at some point down the line. He was too old for the tears that he never felt falling from his eyes until after they’d streaked his cheeks and hit his skin, too bitter for the sleepless nights reshaping himself for someone that wouldn’t love him back, and too much of a fucking skeptic to let himself be as reckless as he once was.

But what he _wasn’t_ too unqualified for was appreciating whatever lasted for a long run, even if the track record would just change with the seasons, like it always did. Even if he _really_ didn’t want it to.

He’d hardly managed to miss the end button four separate times before he rolled on his side, slung his arm in the general vicinity of the end table nearby upon which to deposit his phone, and maintained enough of a drunken stupor needed to stifle his racing mind long enough to drift off.


	8. let me suffer in silence, because I never want to hear anyone say my name but you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the competition ends, Joel and Ray make their separate ways back home, and receive some advice from their respective support networks along the way.

Maybe it was the lingering effects of the booze, or perhaps simply the fact that Joel Heyman turned into a stormcloud when bad turned worse, but the only thing that came to Jack’s mind when Joel slid into his passenger seat and closed the door with a little too much force was that he was dealing with a very hung-over, very foreboding bout of stormy weather.

He left the key hanging in the ignition unturned when he glanced at his friend, gaze patient and starkly contrasted against Joel’s empty, lined stare through the windshield. He had agreed to pick him up from the airport when he left., since Joel had an apparent moral opposition to leaving his car (“it’s a fucking M3, Jack, I’m not paying to have the detailing redone because some teenage fuck needs parking practice”) parked in the airport lot, but he’d sensed something was wrong when he met him in the baggage claim and was met with radio silence. Radio silence that had gone on for the better part of an hour.

“Late night?” Jack offered when Joel didn’t show any signs of speaking up, whose unexpectedness was rewarded with a blank stare in his direction and a shift. And dear lord, he noted upon seeing the dark eyes that only hung onto his own for a minute, he looked fucking exhausted.

“Kinda,” he muttered finally.

“This isn’t about that kid, is it?” Jack asked, honest amusement making its way into his voice before he was cut off by a stare and a cleared throat.

Oh, god, it really _was_ about the kid.

“I found out this weekend that he skates,” Joel started, pulling a folded page from his back pocket. He unfolded it carefully, voice was tinged with something that shook with augury as his expression darkened, adding a curt ‘ _very_ well, in fact’ as he held them out for Jack to see.

Jack took the stapled papers in hand confusedly, eyes following Joel’s finger as he pointed to the name under fourth place.

“This is him? You’re sure it’s not just—” He fell short when he looked up, sudden understanding pervading his confusion to offer clarity. “ _Oh_. Oh, god. Is this the category _you_ judged?”

“Bingo,” Joel hissed, “don’t look now, but I got played for a fucking sleaze.” He took the paper back effortlessly as Jack’s grip fell open. “Believe it or not.”

Jack frowned. “But how would he have even known you were judging? Did you tell him?”

“No, I didn’t.” Joel folded his arms and sent his gaze straight through the windshield once more, humorless laugh pervading the silence and falling sharp like a minor chord.

“Weren’t you over there, like, Wednesday night? As in the night before you left?”

A stiff nod.

Jack blinked. “What did you two _discuss_ after the fact? Like, where did you both think the other was headed?” He looked on confusedly as Joel’s expression changed to mild shock, sending a bewildered look back. “Know what, spare me the details,” he said quickly, putting up a hand while Joel’s eyebrows were still raised.

He shook it off before he spoke, but when he did, he couldn’t help but notice how final Joel’s expression seemed. “Look, man, not only are you the first person I’ve opted to discuss this with, but you will also be the _last,_ ” Joel affirmed, and Jack almost didn’t catch the strain clinging to his voice like a leech. “After this conversation, I’m done with it.”

Summarily dismissed, just like that. But Jack knew him better than that, knew he’d spent so long not caring about anything or anyone that he rejected it when it swept him up, and made a huge deal about it. Like the performer he was born to be, of course.

“Joel, for someone who claims he can’t stand emotions, you and I both know you fell _hard_.”

“And then I got used,” Joel said calmly, beginning to look more falsely apathetic – an expected departure from how incensed he looked earlier, because he really was the king of denial – by the minute. “Which, by the way, was something I didn’t expect to happen after I graduated from college.”

But Jack blew a breath out from his nose as he rolled to a stop, cursing the line of red lights as far as they could see on the freeway before them, before turning to Joel.

“Did you consider he didn’t make the connection when he learned your name?”

“What do you mean?”

Jack huffed, because he’d really been avoiding asking the zinger that was ‘what if the name, _your_ name, meant nothing to him?’, but he opted to proceed on a more diplomatic route.

“Like, you were on the circuit when he was an infant. He’s a kid, things are different,” he tried, hoping to god it clarified the thought with minimal damage. He sent a stare down the freeway that had been moved to a standstill by rush hour traffic and tried to ignore the increasingly overwhelming elephant in the car, but he had a bad feeling Joel would push it, and that would push _him_.

And on cue, Joel stared him like he’d informed him that the week had nine days. Jack just sighed before elaborating, because he had a knot in his stomach about where this conversation was headed. For his stupid-enough-to-almost-call-it-charming friend’s sake.

“Yeah, it’s awkward you were the one judging him, but did he ever even admit that’s what he was after?”

Joel scoffed. “Of course he wouldn’t.”

Jack sent him a very annoyed look, only half intended for the traffic hold-up.

“Okay, so what if he just had no idea who you were?”

“I don’t think he’s that stupid,” the older man replied drily, leaning back in his seat.

” _Christ_ , Joel, you just don’t get it. Not at all.” Jack ran a hand across his forehead, because he could already feel Joel’s bull-headed tendency to tune him out expanding rapidly. But between the traffic and the man beside him, his patience was wearing thin, because as long as he’d known Joel, he’d been this way- flighty and stuck in his own head for too long, which left him disillusioned and angry and a boatload of other adjectives of a similar variety. Stuck in his head for _far_ too long, actually, now that he thought about it.

“What is there to not get, Jack?” Joel’s voice was raised and the inflection he added to the end of the question held signature brashness, but at that point, the fact that Joel very likely knew the answer but was too self-centered to even consider its truth persuaded Jack to quit playing the sympathy card.

“This! _All_ of this!” He slammed a hand down on the steering wheel, turning to the older man with a sharp glance. “People aren’t going to remember you forever, Joel! The world keeps turning after you’re gone, when the hell are you gonna get off your massive fucking ego and _realize_ that?”

They sat in silence for a minute after he’d spoken, and it was a looming silence Jack resented every second of. He knew he’d hurt Joel by the way his breath caught before he managed to reply, narrow gaze darkening in his periphery, but he wouldn’t have said it if he didn’t think it was something he needed to hear.

Jack waited until the traffic eased up before he turned to Joel again, gaze softer, and was pinned with an icy stare in return. But it was expectant, like he waiting for something. Hopefully that something wasn’t the opportunity to cook Jack alive.

So he lowered his eyes contemplatively, wondering if he was really this bad at getting his points across before speaking up again.

“I’m not saying he’s not to blame, Joel, but I think you’ve got some owning up to do here, too.”

“It’s not in my MO to apologize for what isn’t my fault,” Joel growled, and hell, he didn’t care what it must have sounded like because it was true. It fucking sucked because he didn’t apologize when he should’ve, either.

He took responsibility for the little things, the stupid shit that didn’t really matter like ‘oh, sorry I let the door swing shut,’ or ‘sorry, I didn’t quite catch that, say again?’, but when it came down to staring all his faults in the face and opening himself up to fire from below by uttering those words, he was a strong advocate of silence. Things like empty gratitude and apologies that proved meaningless from sheer amount of overuse didn’t sit well with Joel at all, especially given the fact that the usual culprit (read: unlucky fucking bastard) that they were expected to be directed to – _relationships_ , the situations he pointedly avoided placing himself in, and was rather successful with, he might have added – was a person that theoretically deserved better.

And for all the work he did to make sure he exuded self-confidence to the general public, even to the point of looking like an arrogant prick, he knew the relationships certainly deserved better than him. Especially the ones that really meant something. The few, and in this case, the very recent.

So no, empty apologies didn’t exactly factor into their arrangement, but more than anything, as Joel had convinced himself long ago, he just wasn’t _supposed_ to fucking care.

He didn’t ask for much, but he did demand that of himself, and fuck, if Jack wasn’t reminding him that he had the capacity to _fucking care_.

They didn’t speak the rest of the drive to Joel’s apartment, and by the time they arrived, Joel was still pissed off and too resoundingly sober to want to say another word.

“Plans?” Jack asked simply when Joel opened the door and gestured to the back of his car to get the trunk popped. He was met with a sigh before the door swung shut, and the mess of hair resurfaced through the passenger window as he rolled the glass down. “Watch the stars through lots of smoke. Buy groceries. Marathon something stupid. All plans otherwise to be determined.”

Jack frowned. “You’re acting like a teenager, Joel.”

He felt the car move as Joel opened the trunk, rolling his eyes as he heard the older man call back “don’t diss my taste in evening entertainment, asshole,” complimented by a one-finger salute in the rearview mirror.

“Give it some thought, at least,” he offered after a moment, when Joel came back around the side and leaned in once more. “Easier to move on that way.”

He caught a glimpse of Joel’s eyes when he looked back at him, but they were too dark to tell if it was a street lamp or ambivalence he was seeing reflected back from them.

“Thanks for the ride,” Joel said with a tight smile, giving Jack a small wave as he turned and started up the concrete walkway.

\--

“He was in the 1992 Olympics, holy shit! How the hell did this slip your mind?”

Ray paused in his search of his fridge, eyes wandering over the contents uninterestedly. His eyes scanned the contents but refused to register anything, so he straightened his stance and scratched his neck as he did his best to dial Michael out in favor of something less mentally intrusive. Or at least something less confrontational.

“It just.. did?”

Michael waved the hardly-excuse away and squinted at his iPhone screen in awe. “Ray, he’s the Kalashnikov of figureskating, and frankly, I’m shocked you haven’t at least seen him on YouTube.”

The younger frowned, rifling past plastic containers and scrunching his nose up at a take-out box in the back from heaven knows when.

“I was never good at remembering to do my homework. Get off my ass, mom.”

“I wonder if your coach knows him. Was he on the circuit from ‘an early age to well into the nineties and early 2000s, faring multiple international and national tournaments, and boasting a record of—”

“Are you on fucking _Wikipedia_?”

“Dude,” Michael began with a sigh, clapping his hand on Ray’s shoulder as he slid his phone back into his pocket. “All I’m saying is that for someone so into skating, you’re stupid as a sack of shit.”

_At least people haven’t been mincing their words lately,_ Ray thought with a grumble as he shrugged his hand off in mild annoyance. Michael had insisted after a brisk string of texts that Ray call him the minute he woke up, since the Puerto Rican had booked a red-eye flight back from Boston and won the argument for the time being to be left alone. The time Ray spent on the plane was mostly spent in limbo between wakefulness and falling unconscious to the lull of the engine, actually, since he’d spent the rest of his trip following the return to his room totally wired. Neither of them had exactly counted on that part.

However, when Ray didn’t get back to him until one in the afternoon (and Michael didn’t consider the AIM notification of his presence online – _not_ a message, especially not of the SMS variety – a signal that offered any doubt about him being awake and at home), Michael had raced over and pounded on Ray’s door until he threatened to break it down.

“If you came to insult me, don’t bother, I’ve done enough of that already,” Ray muttered, handing him a can of Coke from the fridge. ESPN was blaring loudly from the TV while the remote was across the room, and Ray’s glasses were sitting on an antiquated shelf, unmoved from before and quite likely _not_ unintentionally left in their place, Michael thought to himself. From the looks of it, he was trying to drown himself in his own apartment.

He let them sit in silence while Ray worked away at the guards he’d pried from his skates, occasionally commenting on the ticker speeding across the bottom of the screen, but only receiving brief hums of acknowledgement in reply.

The redhead looked concerned when he returned his gaze to his friend. “Do you like him more than your skates?” he asked finally, his voice cautious and soft. “I know Burnie was probably making you hate it all, considering how hard he worked you, but…”

“No,” Ray interrupted with a clipped tone. “I didn’t.” He’d glanced up from his hard guards from where he sat perched on his counter, and met his friend’s worried look with a steadfast one of his own.

And to that, Michael frowned, struggling with a response. “He called you a slut and you totally crumpled, Ray,” he tried, “it’s safe to say you care. Also okay to call yesterday a really shitty day.”

 “Things happen,” Ray replied simply, not looking up.

“ _Ray_ ,” Michael sighed, taking a seat on one of the bar stools perched below the island, “you can lie to yourself all you want, but don’t fucking lie to me. Just don’t.” He pulled the guards from Ray’s fingers when they stilled, nudging his leg insistently. Ray looked up at him, eyes softer, but he dropped his glance back to the tile on his kitchen floor after a minute of maintained contact.

“He didn’t believe me,” he said finally. “Yeah, I care that I didn’t place as high as I wanted, don’t get me wrong, but… he just looked at me with this _look_ , and it went straight through me. And I tried to walk it off, tried to sleep it off, but I can’t get it out of my—”

“Why do you care?”

Ray blinked at the unexpected interruption, train of thought coming to a screeching halt as he considered it.

“I don’t, I…”

“Don’t _start_ with that bullshit, Ray, you do. And let me answer that for you, you care because you guys had something.”

The choice of ‘had’ in that recount hit Ray with a pang that reverberated through his chest, but he frowned and did his best to ignore it.

“A series of good sex and bad decisions,” he corrected instead, with a stretch and a brief simper. “And I happened to be pulled along for the ride.”

Michael chewed at his lip.

“Good sex, huh?”

“Fan _tastic_.”

A snicker came from Michael’s direction, but Ray opted to ignore that, too.

“So, what made it into a series, the sex or the bad decisions?” he asked, air quotes adorning ‘bad decisions’ after a moment of silence. Ray took a breath, knowing what Michael was getting at. “I’m not letting you make me think I’m in the middle of a fucking Disney movie, Michael.”

The sigh he received in reply was monumental. Ray raised his can to him, and Michael flipped him off. “Don’t _tell_ me you’re only in it for the dick. You’re in a veritable goddamn relationship with this dude, even if _relationship_ means sex and apparently not talking about each other’s feelings.” He smacked Ray in the leg when he noticed him staring out the window, bringing him back to the real world with a yelp. “Friends with benefits still means _friends_ ,” he muttered on a final note, folding his arms once again as he leaned back on the stool.

The Puerto Rican shrugged noncommittally in reply. “I mean, it’s a pretty sociopathic continuum. The feelings may have gotten in the way, but they can always be dealt with. The dick was _necessary_.”

Michael rolled his eyes behind his can. “ _Right_. The only thing keeping you from jumping from fuck buddies to being in a relationship is some sort of totally repulsive character trait that you can’t seem to find in this guy.”

Ray crossed his arms right back and realized how infantile his pout looked only after the fact.

“Being accused of playing dirty seemed pretty repulsive.”

A sentiment that was met with a sigh and a flat stare, naturally. Yes, he’d let the point whiz right past his ear, but he figured he’d settle for letting Michael reprimand him for it.

“Ray, he’s hurt. And neither of you were honest.” Michael placed his can on the counter with a frown, crossing his arms on the table’s surface. “You want a stick to ride, invest in a dildo, but there’s a person attached to the one you’re riding that breathes and feels and thinks, and right now, I think he’s doing a whole lot of feeling. Like you.”

There was a sustained silence that hung in the air before Ray spoke up again, and this time, his voice shook.

“What the fuck do you want me to do?”

Michael’s reply was simple and to the point, as per normal.

“Do what you always do when you’re stressed.”

“What, the _rink_?” Ray laughed, overdramatic and sarcastic until he realized who he resembled and cut it off immediately. “Got a little too much faith in me if you think I could stomach that, Michael Jones.” He shifted, tucking his legs up beneath himself so he sat cross-legged on the counter, chin resting in his hands. “Besides, I don’t think it would h-”

“Ray,” Michael growled, cutting him off, “you’re keeping yourself from what you love, you stupid fuck.”

The younger maintained a mildly taken aback expression from the interruption, but he couldn’t bring himself to ask his friend as to _what_ exactly he was referring. Deep breath in, deep breath out.

He’d start with the rink, he decided hesitantly.

“I don’t want to see Burnie at mine, and I sure as hell don’t want to see… well, you know.” He scratched his head in defeat, glancing up at the redhead. “I could let things blow over, at least. Or just move away. Several states away.”

Michael’s eyes might as well have rolled to the back of his head.

“Go to the rink at _night_ , moron.”

Then there was silence, save for the protest Ray had readied on his tongue that fell flat. It didn’t take much for Michael to get Ray to tell him he was right, and Ray despised how much the guy reveled in it.

“I hate when you come over,” Ray grumbled finally as he hopped off the countertop, not bothered to will the agitation from his words (though insincere) as Michael beamed back at him. “Really fucking hate it.”


	9. vapor trails

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ray decides to take Michael's advice and head back to the rink (read: continue avoiding the first and last person he wanted to see) at long last. Joel has some advice to reluctantly consider, as well. 
> 
> Virgos are insufferably stubborn, after all.

It was a dark day when Ray found himself taking advice from resident hothead. Then again, Michael had balance in his love life from Lindsay, companion resident hothead (or maybe just _redhead_ , he mused), which was more than Ray could boast at the moment. But he wasn’t bitter about that or anything, he’d think to himself sourly; no, not at _all_.

He finally decided to consider Michael’s recommendation about two minutes after he left, though he’d never admit it to him. Knowing himself well enough to recognize he’d put it off forever if he waited another day, he decided to scroll through pages and pages of rink information before finally finding an admin email address for the rink. _The_ rink, he thought bitterly, because he proved inescapably to be a sentimental fuck, and he would rather go somewhere that historically relieved stress than risk running into Burnie and ramping it up again tenfold. He’d successfully ignored about a dozen phone calls, and he was honestly surprised he hadn’t come home to a battering ram through his front door.

But to even more surprise, he received a reply to his email the morning after he’d sent his request, and was positively thrilled (and half mind-blown, because he hadn’t really been expecting it at one hundred percent) to receive an affirmation. The rink’s director agreed to leave the doors unlocked until Ray got there, mentioning having a kid from the back office – Kerry, Ray inferred with a smile – hanging around only long enough to lock them behind Ray and head out to let him use the arena. He felt like a weight was lifted from his shoulders when the subject line had popped up in his inbox, so the email he sent back in gratitude thanked them at least four separate times.

By the time he’d reached the rink on the day he’d requested and locked his bike in the bike rack, he had a strange feeling of exhilaration burning in his chest – nervousness, even, which reminded him of the day he’d started up at the place. It was strange going back to something so pure, a hobby-turned-lifestyle that had been such a constant for so long; actually, it was a little surreal, given the fact that he was back to the little old rink in Texas he’d ventured to as an escape and left with one beyond his wildest dreams.

He glanced at the sign above the doors with a pang of something flavored like nostalgia before he went in, and bit his tongue in silent reprimand for allowing himself the sentiment. It was impossible to look at the parking lot without thinking of the inevitable, though, even harder to let his fingers curl around the door handle and pull it open to the familiar draft that blew through his hair, and once the door closed behind him and he could see the light blue of the ice glittering beneath the lights, something in his chest had constricted. But he took a deep breath for solidarity, making his way in like he always had and keeping his chin held high.

He probably looked a little ridiculous in all his precautionary layering, just in case he ran into someone he didn’t want to see – since he hadn’t mentioned avoiding anyone in his email, he figured there was a chance he’d see an all-too-familiar face in the otherwise empty stands, so his solution consisted of two hoodies, a hat, and skating trousers to replace his typical jeans. He might have been a bit of a fashion catastrophe, he noted with a grimace before leaving home, but at least he’d fall relatively under the radar. And he was happy to live with that, because he hadn’t gotten far enough to know what he’d even do if he ran into the _last_ person he wanted to see.

Once he made it onto the ice, though, he was hit with a strange wave of something he couldn’t quite place – relief, perhaps, the feeling of his nerves blowing through his entire system like cold air into a set of doors separating out from in, but something was different this time. Naturally, he supposed, given the fact that the room was entirely silent. He’d like to think he preferred it that way, but he had to shake the idea from his mind once it crossed the forefront of conscious thought and lingered longer than he’d liked to indulge. Ray’s eyes roamed over the rink before him, moving to the empty stands and landing inevitably in a familiar place by the exit that made his heart lurch. A set of chairs he’d honestly never seen this late, but one he’d never witnessed unoccupied.

He was quick to put in his headphones after he’d sent his gaze back to his skates, though, remembering Michael’s words and refusing to linger too long on what he was here to remedy. They always said confronting your fears head-on was the best step in assuaging them, that the process of moving on began with a singular first step, and progress was certainly progress – but with every step he took, every glide and movement over the ice that had him falling into familiar spirals in no time, he couldn’t be sure if he was here to forget or to remember. So he decided to hand himself over to his music like days gone by – _long_ gone by if he’d really stopped to consider it – in hopes of thoroughly exhausting himself from thinking too hard anymore. At least he could say he tried.

But by the time his playlist ended, after the final note had left his eardrums and he stood in the rink with his hands on his knees, breaths heavy and heart heavier, he knew it would take a lot more practice to find the answer he was looking for. He crouched low enough to allow his legs to give out below him, sliding across the ice on his back with outstretched arms once he let himself fall.

As he sent his eyes toward the ceiling, running a hand through his hair and letting the air escape his lungs, he tried to ignore the prickling sense of déjà vu that the lights on the ice sent through his chest. He tried to concentrate on the sleep he’d lost over the mess he’d found himself tangled in, the heartache and the overwhelming silence of the rink that hit his ears when he pulled his headphones off, but most of all, he tried to convince himself he didn’t want what he had, what had perhaps passed. What had happened on the very ice on which he lay – stretched out, vulnerable, tired. Alone.

He clambered to his feet finally, deciding he’d conclude whether or not the practice had helped in the morning. It felt good to skate again, no doubt, felt better to skate with no one watching, but something was clinging to his heart when he left the rink that he couldn’t shake even after getting home. Something that made his effort feel empty, incomplete; like he'd been expecting something else, if he was brutally honest with himself. And for all he knew, maybe he _had_ been expecting something else. After all, there's a fine gradient joining hopes and expectations, and in a profession that left Ray bruised and beaten, he knew it better than most.

Maybe he wasn't ready to say he might have been _hoping_ for something in particular. Hoping to see some _one_ in particular. 

He decided he'd take it in stride.

But whatever it was that kept drawing him back time and time again, whatever did the ensuring that he continued on this strange and uncertain trajectory he’d set himself on, whether it was the company or the sport that pulled on his heart and besought him to stay – well, he didn’t need Michael to tell him he’d have to discover that one on his own.

\--

Was one cigarette ever enough time to remember all the ‘you’s and ‘me’s with all the ‘and’s in between, the staggered breaths that took the place of words, the addendums and take-aways, the long nights that stretched by in close proximity and closer whispers of hunger and desire that ended after the sun came up?

Joel frowned and lit up anyway, willing the thought away in a heavy sigh that swirled with smoke and words unspoken. He asked himself too many fucking questions.

He decided long ago he’d ran out of faith in anything long before he’d ever run out of smokes, and as long as an escape was worth $5.50 a pack at the service station – the one that stayed open late enough for him to slip out at two in the morning when he opened an empty pack – he was happy to press his lips to his golds and have that deadly kiss mean more than anything, especially the nameless face sleeping soundly in the bed he’d left for his salvation.

Breathe in, hold, breathe out.

Until he met Ray. Ray, who didn’t bother cutting his cigarettes all in half when he had the chance to swipe them from where they sat on his nightstand or in his pockets and _do it_ ; no, he never even wanted to, even though Joel very likely deserved it. Ray, who could’ve yanked the damn things straight from his lips and extinguished them between his fingers, hell, could have simply _asked_ like everyone had before, but he didn’t. Not because he didn’t care, he’d seen that in his eyes, but because he understood. Maybe not what it was like to be addicted, but what it was like to let himself take flight.

For all the time he’d spent interacting with countless faces in which he might have seen something more than just a smile, the one thing Joel could say without hesitation that he truly fell in love with in all his youth was the ice. He’d practiced day and night because it was where he loved to be more than anything, a gleaming constant in his life that was always there when he wanted it to be, when he _needed_ it to be. It was the persistent force that picked him up when he fell, somewhat ironically, and at the end of the day, there was nowhere else he’d ever wanted to be. By the time he’d hit 30, he knew that of all the presences in his life, he’d really given figureskating his everything, which was more than he could say for many of the nights of a warmer nature he’d had.

All were realizations that hit him when he stood on the Olympic podium for the last time, holding his head high and his outstretched hand toward the crowd, but despite all the ringing applause in that moment and the congratulatory alcohol he knew was waiting for him beyond the door, all he could think was how he’d wake up the next day and though he could take off his skates, his costume, and even his pride, he could never take off his skin. Skin that made him who he was, skin with blood running beneath it that moved for something he had never been sure of; he was no robot, he didn’t come pre-programmed to do one thing and one thing alone, and the realization of all this as a well-seasoned professional athlete was completely earth-shattering.

So when he’d decided to end his career at a high point, having competed in countless national and international invitationals, including a handful of Winter Olympic Games, it would’ve been generous to say he’d floundered.

He’d avoided the rink as long as he could, and hell, he really did find comfort in the stands once he’d started sitting _behind_ the partitions instead of falling on his ass again and again when he worked up the nerve to practice. And it might have even hurt more sitting still than being in the spotlight, at first. But he knew somewhere in his heart and mind that the ice wasn’t his life, and he was old enough to know that he was a person beyond his acrobatics, beyond all the performances and the applause that didn’t do a damn thing for him beyond the ego boost and the ever-revered medals that sat where he could occasionally glance up and indulge himself in the memories collecting dust.

The popular favorite question was why he left. Why he _wanted_ to leave, even, since ‘you were so good when you ended it all, and hell, the fans love you, why go?’ and since he still viewed his career so fondly, as everyone did – and the easy answer was that he left before his legs could give out. An answer that made his publicists breathe easy, an answer that didn’t offend anyone, and didn’t weigh too heavily on his aching heart.

An answer that was unavoidably missing as much as it sounded like it was.

But it finally hit Joel like a freight train when he’d laid awake all night, hours before his publicist planned to release his statement, gears in his mind still spinning as fast as ever, because he realized that for all his years delighting in it, he didn't _want_ the spotlight, not like that. Not from the ones that he was keeping all his effort from to please the masses. The ones he wanted to spend more than just a fortnight alongside. And no matter how much he could lie his ass off on live television to his heart’s content about it, it didn’t change a damn thing.

It took Joel longer than he wanted to admit that he wanted to find himself past all the glory and the competition. The day he discovered that he was living a life so ravenous for success that he'd pushed everything and everyone else that left him feeling so wronged and empty aside was the day he convinced himself that his midlife crisis had started in his twenties. He ached to learn how to take comfort and pleasure in the smaller things, to appreciate the sun and rain, to indulge latent interest in the stock market and stupid console games, but in all his time spent relearning how the world worked outside the rink, he could never bring himself to open up enough to let someone remind him how others worked.

To let them remind him how _he_ worked.

But just like that realization all those years ago, he was beginning to hear the wail of the approaching locomotive.

And now that Joel was sitting – no, leaning over his balcony, gazing blankly into the dark of night and smoking with a kind of restlessness he hadn’t had since he first picked the habit up, he wondered when it changed. Wondered what it was about this kid, wondered when things changed from ‘I don't want to remember your name when the sun comes up and I drive you home, but I don't want it to matter, either’ to late nights that got later and later by their number alone, the kind that held skies littered with stars that he’d perhaps better notice if he hadn’t been so enrapt with something – _someone_ – even better, nights that quickly metamorphosed to early mornings watching the sunrise and wishing it would disappear back beneath the horizon like they might beneath the sheets. Nights he wanted to keep forever.

And he was beginning to realize, even after he'd pulled his phone out and dialed, he was fucked. Had been for a while, actually, and he was beginning to think he was the last one to realize it.

One cigarette certainly wasn’t enough, as it turned out – not even half, and certainly not how long it took Jack to answer his goddamn phone.

(Incidentally, he’d known that the cigarettes were empty salvation the entire damn time, but they helped marginally with something he’d refused to call ‘guilt’.)

The tone of the other line stopped ringing, and a voice answered on the other line, but before he could get out a ‘hello’, Joel interrupted him.

“I need to talk to you.”

A breath held mid-greeting blew back out against the speaker on Jack’s end.

“What’d you do?”

Yeah, Joel thought to himself, definitely deserved it.

“I think I fucked up.”


	10. you’ve got a lust for love alongside the temporary, and darling, what we have never did fit the bill

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ray goes back to the rink again prepared to blow off steam. Life has a way of flipping the tables on an otherwise quiet evening, however, if you ever let it get its hands around your throat, so make sure you've got a mean backhand.

Ray was half convinced he’d developed a dependency when he found himself replying to the e-mail thread with the rink’s director the night he’d gotten back, only to return to the rink two days after. Something in his head had told him it’d helped, but he must have also convinced himself that the best way to sure of it was to keep returning.

When he got to the rink that night, though, he had to admit he was feeling better. More social, maybe.

He found Kerry pretty quickly once he’d gathered his bearings after he’d arrived, flagging him down before he’d caught his breath from the cold air outside, and waving a few separate times to catch his attention before he gave up with a huff and marched toward the younger man, yanking one of his earbuds out and looking at him expectantly.

“Dude, what the hell?” Kerry snapped, eyes softening when he saw Ray. “Oh, it’s just you. Jesus, and I was doing really well in avoiding premature cardiac arrest.”

Ray offered a brief but apologetic smile, but otherwise ignored the remark. “Is whoever is in charge here? I wanted to thank them— him? Her? Thank _them_ for letting me come after hours,” he supplied, anxiety clear as day in his voice. _Jesus, he really was turning into a junkie if being off the ice this long did this to his social skills_ , he thought to himself with a startled series of blinks. _Or lack thereof_. But he simply bit his lip and shrugged innocently back at him instead of voicing the thought.

Kerry gave him a funny look, but he sent a thumb toward a door on the side of offices before he continued on with his keys, locking the metal grate that came down over the rental counter and disappearing around a corner. Ray called a ‘thank you!’ back in his direction, receiving a half-assed wave in response, to which he rolled his eyes before making his way toward the door. Finding it unlocked, he opened it to reveal a small, carpeted hallway that led into a small reception area. There was a desk in the front of the room, a placard upon it that read _Barbara Dunkelman,_ and behind it stood a cute blonde sorting files into a briefcase. Presumably the Barbara in question, he figured.

She flipped through a manila folder with short, lacquered fingernails, pausing to glance up when Ray moved into the open space and coughed politely.

“Oh! You must be the one that emailed,” she said with a smile, sliding the last folder into the bag and closing it with a soft click. “Rink working for you?”

Ray swallowed the strange feeling in his throat. “Yeah,” he affirmed with what he hoped didn’t look like a grimace. “Yeah, I, uh, didn’t realize anyone else was here until Kerry mentioned it.” He could’ve winced at how goddamn offensive that probably sounded, but he elected to make light of the awkward moment rather than exacerbate it. “And I wanted to thank you for letting me trespass on your property,” he added quickly, laughing before nervously running a hand along his jawline. _Fucking smooth-talker over here._

She nodded, smiling warmly before pulling the bag’s strap over her shoulder. “Hey, you’re welcome, but I’m not the one that you were in touch with.” Moving out from behind the desk, she pointed at a door garnished with an important-looking plaque further down the hall, illuminated only by the light that poured out around the edges. She collected the rest of her things, offering one last glance at Ray. “In any case, I’m headed out, so the rink’s yours for the night. But from the looks of it, the light’s on, if you want to introduce yourself.”

His eyes fell on the door with interest, barely remembering to send a quick ‘thank you!’ in her direction before his curiosity got the better of him. Deciding quickly to make his parents proud with a showcase of manners, he headed for the door, odd feeling that tugged at his stomach remaining unyielding.

He made his way down the hall, knocking twice to announce himself before pushing the door open from where it rest cracked. Slipping through the entryway, he poked his head into the office, fingers curling around the doorhandle as he allowed it to close once more.

“Hi,” he started awkwardly, glancing around the corner and into the room, “just wanted to say thanks again for letting me use your--”

Ray stopped dead in his tracks when Joel raised his eyes from the screen of a laptop perched on the edge of the desk.

Oh _, shit._

It all hit him at once, practically as fast as the door clicked shut behind him; the sudden understanding when he saw that familiar mess of hair and the dark, drooping eyes that went straight through him and the weight of that same realization, but most of all, he was hit with the fact that he should’ve known. Should’ve known it was him, should’ve known life had a tendency to play jokes like this whose punch lines were painfully, _painfully_ ironic and tended to not leave people laughing.

And if this was a joke, he wasn’t about to top it off with a surly punchline, because it took exactly one look at Joel to see the mess behind the exterior. He hadn’t been getting enough sleep, Ray was sure of it, judging by the rings beginning to show beneath his eyes and the half-filled coffee cup that had probably gone cold a while ago. Something about that was satisfying in a sick sort of way, he supposed, but all he could think was how he was sure he himself didn’t look much better.

But here they were; Joel, who was sitting before him – rigid as a board and deathly still behind that desk, one he evidently owned like the rest of the place, judging by the name card that read _Director_ Heyman – and Ray, who stood there like an idiot that hadn’t finished his goddamn sentence, trying desperately to swim up for air.

“—ice.” He let out his breath and ran a hand through his hair, because he was standing there looking ridiculous in what had to have been six layers and still felt like he was just as exposed as he’d been in the stadium under glaring lights and camera lenses. But for all the eyes he could’ve given a shit about, he still squirmed under the same pair.

Then again, Joel almost looked more worried than Ray did that the younger had wound up standing in this very office, staring at the older man like he was some sort of exhibit, most likely.

“You own the rink,” Ray breathed finally, punctuating the conclusion with a defeated sigh. He had that same strange pull in his gut, like he’d known it all along – like he should’ve, no doubt – but had never really paid enough attention to the details of the forest aside from his favorite tree to figure it out, to piece it together. His cheeks were probably burning and he might as well have turned on his heel and strutted right back out the door, but as always, Joel’s presence had a way of keeping him in his place. It hit him like the beam of a searchlight, sharp and attentive.

“Why’d you think I was always here?” Joel’s voice was soft when he spoke, not accusatory in the slightest, but he was chewing on his lip as if he’d said something wrong.

“To be fair, you didn’t know why I was always here, either.”

_No honor among assholes_ , Ray noted with a flip of his stomach, as Joel visibly winced at the comment.

Ray knew he could run from it if he wanted; he could step out the door, bike to his side of town, and never come back like they didn’t owe each other a thing. He could go on with his career, with his life, with his friends and family and his stupid little dead-end job at a retail chain. He could shower in his own apartment, pull a towel from his own rack and run it through his hair in front of his own mirror, and he wouldn’t have anyone behind him to wrap their arms around him and tell him everything would be alright. He could look himself in his own eyes with empty hands and an emptier heart and lie to himself, repeat over and over that he’d be alright with only his own two legs to hold him up, because running was routine. Simple.

But he was tired of running.

Especially when the person he always ran to was the one in front of him.

“I didn’t think, um,” Joel coughed out finally, breaking the silence. “I wasn’t, uh, expecting to see you.”

Ray frowned. “Door wasn’t locked, and apparently you knew I was here. What were you expecting?”

Joel stayed quiet, casting his gaze in a low circuit around the room. His silence was uncertain and maybe a little bit strained, but it wasn’t unwelcoming, and Ray was beginning to get the feeling that the blanket of hesitation that hung over the room so thickly was trying to tell them something.

So he gathered every ounce of courage that clung to his nerves and his bones – the courage that got him to the center of the rink, but for some reason, made him shake to the core where he stood.

“Apparently, we have a habit of running into each other in unexpected places,” he started, moving to the middle of the room and facing the desk from the opposite side, hands crossed beneath his arms in earnest, “so maybe we should take a cue from the universe and talk.”

Joel nodded wordlessly, bringing his eyes to Ray’s own in a momentary glance for affirmation.

“And I want to go first,” Ray added, receiving another nod in reply when he raised an eyebrow. He shifted on his feet, not exactly having a speech prepared, but he figured it would do them both good to finally speak his mind with no holds barred. As terrifying as that was.

Joel’s eyes were on his again, he noticed, watching. Waiting.

Fuck, when did his hands get so clammy?

Ray pressed his lips together, taking a deep breath through his nose.

“I don’t blame you for what happened on the ice, you know, in Boston. If I know you at all, I know you’re probably blaming yourself for that, so just know that I don’t.” _And that was true_ , he thought to himself bitterly, _however much the retribution he never mustered up might have wished it weren’t._ “Not really sure I blame you for what happened afterward, either, actually. I can only imagine what it might have looked like for you, but whatever that was, I was just as surprised to see you.”

He could see the confusion in Joel’s face, quickly giving way to the beginnings of protest, but he certainly wasn’t finished. Putting a hand up before Joel got any words out, his gaze turned to steel, and shit, if he was going to make him bare teeth, he’d show fangs. Maybe he was bitter.

“Don’t worry,” Ray interrupted before he found an opening to speak, tone raising in warning, “oh, don’t worry, here’s what I _do_ blame you for.” He moved in long strides until he stood directly in front of Joel’s desk, temper flaring after days of keeping it beaten down and submerged in enough mindless activity to substitute for a sedative. After all, he said he’d let it all out.

“My sleep schedule’s gone to complete shit, Joel.” Words spoken with about as much spice as sincerity, and topped off with a burning glare to keep him quiet. “My practice schedule is on a serious setback now that I’m back because I can hardly _look_ at the rink, and I’ve sat around for a week,” he spat, slamming a hand carried by ire onto the desk in front of him, “a _week_ , Joel, thinking about how I lost a chance at what I so desperately wanted, and after everything, you thought that was to _medal_?”

“Ray, I’m—”

A slap rang out through the room before Joel could register the movement in front of him, his own words interrupted by a mild look of surprise when he was met with a surprising amount of power Ray administered from his palm straight to his cheek.

And the younger’s discontent was more than apparent when he glanced at him once more, from the line in his brow to the vexation that burned in his eyes.

“And you stood me up for that date, by the way.”

The room was silent, save for the whir of the air conditioning unit above as the two looked at each other while Joel rubbed at his jaw, blinking. When he finally spoke, his voice made it apparent that Ray had made his point clear.

“I deserved that,” he said finally, and his exhaustion came through his voice like glass in his throat.

Ray didn’t miss a beat, though, eyebrow lifting and leaving sympathy where it lay.

“Yeah, you absolutely did.”

Joel sat up, moving his fingers through his hair to reveal a faint pink tinge to his cheek. “You’ve got every right to be mad.” He looked at Ray, not with offense or apprehension, but with something that looked suspiciously like remorse.

“Actually, I’m not,” the younger sighed, letting his arms fall to his sides. “Haven’t had time to be mad at you, been so pissed at myself.”

Joel licked his lips. “Don’t.. don’t do that to yourself, not anymore. It’s not your fault.”

Ray looked surprised. “You seemed to think it was that day. What changed?” He tapped his foot when Joel didn’t respond, watching the gears in his mind start to spin what might have resembled an excuse. “Mince your words, by the way, and I’m leaving.”

Joel grew quiet, eyes lowered in thought, but Ray could tell by the nature of their silence that the break in conversation wasn’t for lack of trying; no, it was filled with fear and fragmented composure just barely held together by a few remnant threads, and the look in Joel’s eyes said everything.

“I’m… what I said to you that day, that was…” His eyebrows furrowed, searching for the right words that picked the perfect time to evade him, and his frustration was apparent in the way he’d pulled his leg to cross over the other and put a hand over his mouth with a sigh. He’d started fidgeting under his gaze, Ray noted, and his own expression softened when he saw Joel struggling with his own mind. It honestly did break his heart to see him like this, the way his thoughts were visibly racing at a mile a minute, certainly too quickly to pull them from the airwaves into coherency that iterated something that remotely resembled what he was feeling, all across the face of the man he was in lo-

Ray cut himself off there out of a week’s worth of walls built in caution, knowing that it was a dangerous road to go down. Knowing all the things that tended to follow in the wake of such an admission, all the blinking lights and noise and sound that screamed at him like the terror, the danger, the thrill of skating the platform edge.

But even after everything that had happened, that admission was beginning to look like the clearest thing in the book.

“I’m an idiot, Ray,” Joel sighed finally. “And a total dick, and that doesn’t begin to cut it.” The obstinacy in his voice startled Ray, but held him in his place, willing him to listen. Pleading with him to listen, really, in the way apologies began from mouths that rarely wove them.

So he did.

“I’ve been thinking about you a lot lately, and god, stop me if I ramble on too much, by the way, because I do tend to do that,” Joel added quickly, glancing at Ray cautiously before getting the green light of a nod to continue on.

And for better or worse, it seemed that Joel had given things a lot of thought.

“You show everyone what loving something, loving _this_ ,” he continued, gesturing to the ice through the window behind him, “is supposed to look like, Ray. It’s like I met you, and everything just fucking lit up, and when it all came together, I got so scared that I would lose you to what made me lose myself.”

His gaze fell to the floor momentarily, shooting back up to Ray’s own after a moment of contemplation. “I’m a perpetual web of stress that just wraps tighter and tighter, and hell, I'm probably an absolute train wreck waiting to happen at this point, but I think I realized that you are what's constantly keeping me in awe— keeping me from giving in to becoming more my age, really. God, you make me look at life like I haven’t in a startlingly long time.”

Ray had fallen silent, but he knew Joel could tell he was genuinely listening. So with a cautious breath, he continued.

“I went through life looking for perfection where I knew I’d never fucking achieve it, setting standards higher and higher until I knew I was bound to fall on my face no matter what, and achieving _anything_ became a drug. And it’s so fucking toxic, it stays in your skin for so long, and god, it ferments in your brain until it turns you into,” he stopped to take a breath with a humorless laugh, “well, something you don’t want to be.”

Ray mulled that one over for a moment, allowing his gaze to drift off. He wasn’t sure if Joel was done from the pause he’d executed, but between his inner debate between talking or keeping quiet, Joel spoke up once more, after a moment of visible hesitation.

“I guess what I’m trying to say is that I’m the guy that snuffs out his issues with cigarette smoke and booze from which I have to _wrench_ myself come Monday morning,” he said with a self-deprecating smile. “The guy who spent most of his life chasing after dreams he wasn’t even really sure about, and hell, at the end of the day, none of those medals mean a thing. Not a goddamn thing, especially not in the face of something that does.”

If Ray were a vindictive person, he probably would’ve appreciated the way Joel fell to pieces under his eyes. But when he heard those words, the only thing Ray felt was compassion flooding in like rainwater in a storm drain, along with a startling amount of clemency.

“I’m a mess, Ray.” His lips pressed together into a tight smile as he shook his head. “You deserve better than to go running head-first into messes, or at least should’ve gotten a warning.”

He smiled softly when Joel let out a breath, one that was perhaps meant to sound determined but came out bearing some semblance of affliction.

“Running isn’t really my style,” Ray offered, mouth quirking up at the corners. “Apparently, falling is.”

Joel looked at him for a long time, searching for something in his eyes, his stance, whatever it was Joel looked at. And when he spoke again, his voice had softened.

“You’re still here.”

Ray nailed him with an unimpressed look, lifting an eyebrow.

“That allowed, old man?”

Somehow, it felt like it always had, and the relief that washed over the both of them in that moment was nearly palpable.

“Is that, are you…?”

Ray grinned. “Your apologies are fucking long-winded, but yeah, I think I’ll accept it.”

The look in Joel’s eyes was filled with gratitude, and he couldn’t help the genuine smile that crossed his face when he met his eyes again. There was a beat before either spoke, caught up in the comfort of the silence, but after a minute, Joel was the one that spoke up.

“Where do we go from here?”

Ray thought for a moment.

“Maybe we should start from the beginning.”

He cleared his throat and straightened his back, moving around the desk to stand at Joel’s side, leaning against the laminate. “I’m Ray Narvaez, Jr., professional figureskater, competitor in the national delegation of the ISU this year, and maybe someday, representative athlete of the US Olympic Team.” Bumping the older man’s hand gently with one of his own, he smiled softly when Joel looked back up at him from where he sat. “Your turn.”

The older man sat up, resting his jaw on his knuckles as he sent him the traces of a smile in return.

“Joel Heyman, _former_ professional figureskater, member of the United States Figure Skating Association, and competitive official.” He slid his hands to the bridge of his nose, lacing his fingers in one another and looking at Ray over the crossed joints. If he hated the silence like it looked like he did, he must’ve been even less satisfied with the fact that the words were leaving his lips at such a strange time, after they’d already known everything there was to know about each other _but_ that. The important stuff.

Ray almost laughed at how ridiculous they were. Joel was still eyeing him carefully, like a kid waiting to be punished, and here he was, sitting in silence like a goddamn idiot when he wanted nothing more than to talk to him for the rest of, well, _ever_.

He figured he’d start with a question. Well, one out of maybe eight million that would answer all the things he hadn’t learned about Joel yet, he supposed.

“Why’d you stop?”

Joel thought for a minute, tasting his answer on his tongue before speaking it.

“I think I wanted something more dangerous, as stupid as that sounds. Maybe not more of a challenge, but something that wasn’t… a skill to be perfected. Something that had to be worked at, like, chipped away at to turn a mess into something better.” His hands dropped from his face to pick up a pen absentmindedly, fidgeting with the clip as he continued. “Wanted to stop looking back at the past, start looking toward a future.”

His eyes shifted up to Ray’s own, holding his gaze as he took a breath. A long, nervous breath.

“One with you, if you’d let me.”

He looked caught in the headlights, like there was more he wanted to say but had no idea how to phrase it between the sentiment in the air and his own reservations, but it hit Ray right in the chest, and he didn’t try to stop the smile from gracing his lips. Because it warmed him to the bone.

“I know I talk too much, and hardly any of it ever makes much sense, but _god_ , say jump and I’ll jump, Ray, I just—”

But he didn’t let Joel finish, cutting him off mid-sentence as he pulled him into a bruising kiss, hands moving from his shirt to his shoulders as Joel settled for smiling against his mouth instead. An arm found its way around Ray’s back as Joel pulled them together, kissing with a kind of dire desperation that banished nostalgia for the warm embrace of metamorphosing back to the present moment, and god, it felt so good.

For the sake of Joel’s thought reaching completion, he pulled back, chuckling as Joel’s head fell forward to follow his lips. His hand came back up to Ray’s cheek, and he breathed his words into the space between them softly, but with contentment.

“—really want to be to you what you are to me.”

Something in Ray’s chest lurched when he heard that, and his skin heated up faster than he realized. His eyes moved from the older’s face down to his lips, because really, when one hears something they never realized how ardently they’d waited for, what can they do?

_English, don’t fail me now. Come on. Say something. **Anything.**_

_If there’s leftover lo mein in my fridge, I want you to be the one I got it with the night before, not the one you ask to heat some up and take it with you on your way out in the morning._

_Does this mean I have an excuse to get jealous when people flirt with you? Fuck it, gonna do that one anyway._

_Your clothes smell awesome, and I’m totally down with stealing a ton of them, but you’re not allowed to expect them back._

He bit his lip.

_I love the idea of being in love with you?_

And he’d evidently bitten back a smile he didn’t catch until it had taken over his entire expression.

“Sounds fun,” he whispered, and Joel’s eyes were brighter than he’d ever remembered. “And apology accepted, judge.”

“Not a judge anymore,” Joel breathed against his lips, corner tugging up into a lopsided curve. “Called in a favor from a friend. Mailed in my resignation from the Committee yesterday.”

For everything he’d planned for this conversation, which he openly admitted wasn’t really much to begin with, those words left Ray floored.

He searched Joel’s eyes for any sign that he was bluffing, opening his mouth in stunned disbelief when he found none. “You didn’t have to,” he managed finally, voice not so much weakened as it was awed.

“I know.” His voice dropped to a breath across Ray’s skin, a whisper in the otherwise silent room. The hand Joel had in Ray’s hair moved to his jaw, his thumb running idly across the younger’s cheek. “I didn’t do it to get away from you, I did it because I wanted to be with you.”

Ray wasted no time in putting a hand to the back of Joel’s neck and pulled forward gently, allowing his forehead to press against his own before inhaling his breath and kissing him like it really had been so long, like he had no intent of stopping. The older made a noise in his throat that sounded like relief, taking Ray into his arms as they both all but breathed their ruin, hard press of each other’s fingers a welcome change from the former absence. The taste of him rang of warmth, the kind that pulled the breath straight from your lungs and sent ghostly sensation through your entire body, the kind that required two hands for balance and eyes closed tight to keep the world out.

They stayed like that for quite some time after their lips had parted, pressed together in the familiarity of each other’s arms and sharing breaths before Joel spoke up once more.

“It’s late, and I think you came for a reason other than me…” He pointed out the window when Ray raised a brow in intrigue, rocking on his feet as the cogs in Ray’s mind turned.

And he paused, offering a noncommittal shrug after Joel nudged him in search of an answer.

“What, you want me to?”

Joel smiled. That would be a _yes_.

“Going to have to ask a little nicer than that,” Ray murmured with a grin of his own.

Joel sighed a heavy, over-the-top sigh. “Alright, princess, I’ll rephrase. Would you skate for me?” he asked, with a tilt of his head and a few bats of his lashes.

“Well, the stakes are a little bit higher since you’ve taken off your mask, Mr. Heyman.”

Joel grimaced at the formality, and Ray chuckled, taking his hand and giving it an endearing squeeze. “What do you want to see?”

“The piece you did.”

Ray thought for a moment, sending a glance out the window at the ice glowing under the fluorescents before turning to Joel with a gleam in his eyes.

“Yeah, but you’ve got to skate with me.”

He sighed, one that matched the sigh he breathed when Ray asked him the first time, but the grin tugging at the corners of his mouth betrayed him this time. He turned quickly, though, heading for his desk and suppressing a snicker all the while, to Ray’s mild confusion.

“What, you got something to say?” he called, laughing as Joel sent him a look from across the room.

He heard a snort, and furrowed his brows. Typical Joel.

Oh, god, he was calling him typical, he realized, as color threatened to begin filling his cheeks. After all that had happened between them, all the moments of tension and heartwarmingly de facto loyalty, of the fast and the faster and the entirely out of left field, and especially of all the morning-afters that lasted long enough that they both began to believe they never wanted the nights to be shared if they couldn’t keep it alongside the days they shared, too.

And if he was supposed to be scared of what that meant, he was surprised that he wasn’t.

“You’re an idiot. A cute idiot, but an idiot.”

Ray blinked, thoughts interrupted. “So, was that a ‘yes, I most certainly _will_ , my darling’, or?”

“The piece you did,” Joel continued, leaning over the desk to rifle through a stack of papers on the laminate before retrieving a cable, “is already a couples’ piece. Have you ever _seen_ The Nutcracker?” He gestured for Ray’s phone when he passed him once more, pointing to his laptop to indicate he could stream the music over the speakers.

But Ray crossed his arms, offering up his phone with a haughty toss of his head. “Have you ever _played_ Bioshock? Come on, Sander Cohen? _Seriously_?” Joel didn’t bother holding back a snort of laughter as he snapped the cable into place, while Ray’s eyes widened in disbelief.

Oh, he was _serious_.

“Well, it’s in the game, you dick, the routine is original and I don’t need your retired input,” he huffed, eyebrows furrowing as he felt his ears begin to flush. Thank god his hood was up.

But Joel stepped in close with a wide stride, dropping the phone on his desk to take a hold of Ray’s chin in an apparent effort to inspect his soul through his pupils.

“I must be imagining things. Did you just call me _old_?”

Between the surprise and the familiarity that went through his skin like a wave, it took a second to string the words to the action and register what exactly had happened, not to mention what he’d said and how he’d said it, plus the stupid gleam resurfacing in Joel’s eyes that made him feel like he’d been submerged in a chemical wash that tingled all over. But when it did register, the subtlest of grins spread across Ray’s face.

“The broadcasters did that for me, ‘veteran’, I just make it sound better.”

And Joel must have really been an endearing son of a bitch, because he smiled back as sweet as he had the day they’d met – read, about as sweet as Splenda, and just as synthetic – but this time, with something that looked suspiciously like relief.

“Well, in that case, jailbait,” he grit out, latching onto Ray’s wrist and hauling him out of his office, “I’d be happy to teach you a few things.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not quite done yet, hold on to your hats. I promise it won't be such a long time coming for the end.


	11. for all the scoring i’ve done, i fell for you harder than anyone ever fell in front of me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ray and Joel finally get to finish the routine they started all that time ago.

“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but you’re going to have to lead. I don’t know a thing about your routine.”

“Yeah?” Ray sent him a smirk, and Joel rolled his eyes in exasperation as he finished lacing up and stood on the ice.

“Consider it power bottoming, you know, as per usual,” he added, words quickly followed by a wolfish grin and a resounding ‘fuck you!’ from Ray.

“Just walk me through it, and tell me when to catch you.” Joel glided over, sliding down on his knee as he took Ray’s hand with a flourish before Ray pulled him back up with one of his own. His breath caught in his throat when he realized he’d never seen Joel skate before, never seen him move with the grace and form of a legend, if the videos he’d seen retroactively had done his technique justice – but here he was, a former Olympic competitor, standing in front of him in a hoodie and jeans without having to put up any more false fronts of ineptitude for all that he had been, all that he _was_.

But what they had wasn’t built on impressing each other with their skates, or upstaging the competition, or even competing professionally; no, he thought to himself as he ran his thumb over Joel’s knuckles with a smile, he’d want him to consider him the messy-haired, sleepy-eyed dinosaur he’d always been.

His eyes shot to the rafters as the lights dimmed, blue side lights shining down and shimmering off the layer of ice while their breath swirled in the air like vapor. Eyeing the change in setting with a wary eye, Ray’s glance shifted to one of placidity as he met the victorious brightness in Joel’s eyes.

“Mood lighting,” Joel elaborated, a grin at his lips. “Come on, I own the place.”

Ray simply rolled his eyes with a plastic smile of his own. “Well, don’t slip on your ego and break your ass, show-off.”

Joel feigned hurt, putting a hand over his heart and staggering on the ice, but Ray just cackled, taking the remote from his fingers. He slid in close to Joel, close enough to feel his breath ruffling his hair and the heat of his body close enough to mimic touch, and when he pressed play, he brushed his lips against Joel’s neck and followed the airy kiss with a smile.

The music began, the same arrangement he’d danced to all those weeks before, and Joel watched, waiting for Ray to set the pace while the piece built up to the starting note. The younger moved into a position to kick off, turning over his shoulder to send Joel a teasing glance.

“Besides, I thought you were done trying to impress me.”

They took off, and Ray wasn’t really sure what he was supposed to expect, but he certainly wasn’t expecting what happened.

Ray fell into his routine seamlessly and Joel chased after him, quick on his heels and moving with a spectacular and very surprising amount of power. It was a peculiar game of trust between the two of them, as Joel had gotten oh so used to all those years before, no doubt, but Ray picked up the partner dynamic with gusto, and Joel certainly noticed. Ray occasionally issued challenges, calling out to Joel with dares like “I’m gonna dip” in contest, and Joel, not to be bested, would shoot back “bend back _further_ , I’ll catch you, I’m used to your curves,” bursting into a fit of laughter as Ray threw up his hands and huffed.

Joel chased him around the rink for quite some time, spinning him with a fluid movement of his arm or grazing his hips with a gentle brush of the hand and a smile, but Ray very nearly stumbled more than he’d readily admit because of how taken he was with Joel’s technique. He moved with confidence, but didn’t exude arrogance; in fact, he looked like he was at more ease on the rink than he’d ever seen him elsewhere, and it was enlivening, magnificent, alluring. His dynamism was incredible, and he moved with a kind of passion that he’d only seen from a handful of skaters in all his years. And the fact that he moved with him, against him, _alongside_ him made it even better.

Things were relatively aligned with what Ray’s routine had originally dictated, with the occasional brush of a hand or fleeting grip on his side, but when the music began to pick up and Ray pulled his leg into the air for a spin, he felt a sudden presence behind him, a steady grip on his hips and a very distinct warmth behind him that spun with him, against him, around and around to the chromatic sway of the music and only disappearing when Joel touched back down to maintain their balance, he looked back at Joel and couldn’t help breaking into a smile.

After a while, Joel’s fingers slid between Ray’s own when they found themselves tracing circles into the icy strata beneath their blades, entwined and providing further momentum as they spun and spun. Ray led most of their movements, but once Joel caught on, he was happy to keep them moving with the entrancing, fluid motions of his arms, and for all the improvising they did, neither of them took any falls.

Ray finally opted to jump, prodding at Joel between grapevines and offering a repeated “catch me, catch me” like a mantra – or a broken record, Joel probably thought – when he bent his legs for a triple axel. When he sprung into the air, Joel did indeed catch him, and not to miss a perfect opportunity to indulge Joel’s taste for the theatrical, Ray put his arms out in a display of flexibility.

“ _Easy_ ,” Joel hissed with a wince, compensating for the shift in force with a sharp turn, “I’ll admit my knees aren’t what they used to be.”

But Ray shook his head with a smile, kissing his cheek wetly when he hit the ice again and pulling Joel’s hood over his face. “The one time the great Joel Heyman admits his age handicap. Fancy _that_.”

He extended a hand to brush against Joel’s jaw, who smiled in turn and went in for Ray’s waist, flipping him over his shoulder and bringing him to rest on his back. Ray watched enrapt as he performed rotation after rotation before Joel finally set him back on the ice carefully as the music peaked, allowing him to end the routine with a cantilever that cascaded into a deep-edged glide that hung low to the ice, landing a flying spin on the crescendo. But the fluidity that he maintained all the while evidently kept Joel captivated, because he hung back to watch the final movements. He wrapped his arms around Ray’s waist from behind as he stuck his finish on the piece’s final note, and smiled into his neck when the younger’s fingers found his own.

“Someone’s definitely feeling better,” Ray managed to pant between breaths, grinning when Joel pressed a kiss to his cheek.

“I’ve been wanting to do that for so long,” he murmured into Ray’s hair, drawing the younger man in close with a tug of his arm. “So fucking long.”

Ray’s smile left a warm trace on his lips as he considered what exactly it was that Joel meant, and though he could’ve asked, he had a pretty good idea since he’d been wanting the same thing all along. Flirtations, physical contact, and verbal sparring matches for better or worse aside, it felt different when they’d been on the ice together, and as they stood together in the cool air, Ray thought to himself, maybe everything had finally fallen into place without need for costumes and debonair smiles.

\--

By the time they’d stumbled back into Joel’s office, a line of unlaced ice skates and coats shed trailing their journey from the ice to Joel’s chair behind his desk, Ray had affirmed his agreement with gusto.

Ray sat perched on his lap, while Joel buried his face in the crook of his neck, inhaling deeply. ”I really wish we’d done that earlier,” Ray hummed finally, legs splayed on either side of Joel’s own as the older pulled his hips in close. “You’re a great practice partner.”

“Well, I can take the fall for that much.”

And he’d hardly gotten the words out before Ray was snickering, pinching at his side and smiling his familiar smile into Joel’s hair.

“Hey, speaking of which, I’ve missed your criticism.”

He heard Joel pause, and figured he caught the tone he was going for when he sent back a low reply with a fascinated smile.

“ _Just_ my criticism?”

Ray grinned with the catlike flash of teeth that reflected back at him in the enticement glittering in Joel’s eyes, and sure, he certainly could’ve settled for a simple answer, but when he was close enough to Joel to breathe in his scent and feel the heat rolling off his skin – close enough, more importantly, to know when to turn a rhetorical question to his advantage – he opted instead to kiss him. Fiercely.

It was more than a kiss, though, because things between them had never stayed as simply as something that could be quantified in single, standard, easy units. No, this was two bodies pressed together, Ray’s form hauled up against Joel’s own when he pressed the older into the chair, who responded by gripping his hips tight and pulling him in, hands pressing into every curve that his fingers flew over – the kind of kiss shared by two that finally met again after far too long, far too much time apart. Joel had one hand to Ray’s neck in no time, and the other beneath the curve of his ass, pulling him flush against his chest with a groan. It was slow, but _god_ , it was sensual, and it all counted for a time of study and rediscovery and realizing it really _had_ been too long, when friction and movement and desire that lay hot and heavy on the tongue for more reasons than one came together in a test to resolve aching need with the kind of flamboyance only performers knew.

Performers that loved the feel of each other even more than the beam of the spotlight, at that, and _that_ surely spoke volumes.

And fuck, if Ray had _wanted_ to bite back the sounds that poured from his lips before, he had no chance in hell now, because from where he was perched atop Joel’s lap, rutting against him and offering gasps like some sort of serenade, he was in a position to indulge and be indulged in return for his efforts. One that Joel evidently enjoyed profusely, if the increasingly vicious nips at the base of his neck were any evidence.

He’d started rocking a familiar rhythm against Joel’s hips before too long, one that made the blood pool below his waistband and his cock press against the spandex hugging tightly to his waist, and by the time Joel’s fingers finally, _finally_ slid teasingly beneath the hem, Ray bucked his hips up so hard that a groan came from his lips with zero abandon to stop it, and he sounded utterly _wrecked_. Yeah, he’d definitely missed this, Ray thought with a smile, missed being close enough to swallow his sighs and feel how warm he was, how good his touch felt against his skin. The sprawl of Ray’s legs was relaxed enough for Joel’s wrist to coax his fingers into a grip under the fabric, tugging it out of the way and letting their owner kick them off enough for cool air to hit his skin, and Ray was quick to mirror the movement, fingers curling around the button on Joel’s jeans and pulling the zipper down enough to slide his hand beneath denim. And Joel lit up like he’d been powered on for the first time when his grip fixed around him, surging up into Ray’s palm and tossing his head back like he’d been jolted in the process.

He had Joel’s legs pinned beneath him, and Ray was happy to be lucky enough to watch all of it from above, but his fingers were itching to do something more than sit idly on the skin that burned so hot against his touch and his cock was aching against his stomach, so it was all he could do to writhe in his lap and sigh the most lascivious rendition of Joel’s name right in his ear.

And for all the energy he’d put into holding himself together, Joel let everything go right there in that moment, a spectacularly wanton moan falling from obscenely parted lips before he clutched Ray’s hips by the bone and very nearly hoisted the two of them out of the chair.

His voice shook, the question proposed with desperation still clinging to it shamelessly, and the tone of it alone was enough to make Ray dizzy.

The content, though, was what surprised him.

“Are you sure you want…?” the older breathed, voice shaking with astounding self-control as he shifted where he rest beneath Ray. “After what happened, don’t want to seem like I’m just… wanted to know if you were okay. With this, with.. me.”

The words registered in Ray’s mind clearly enough that somewhere in his subconscious, the familiar nervous tone he’d always remembered on Joel roused him momentarily from his hazy state of mind. And they trickled into his heart effortlessly, warming him to the bone.

So he smiled, lacing his arms in a familiar collar around Joel’s neck. “We’ve got a long time to spend talking amongst ourselves,” he whispered, “but you did ask if I’d show you how much I missed you, so _yes,_ I’m more than okay with it.” He sent his hips forward to gyrate against Joel’s own once more, sighing the remainder of the final few words into his neck, and smiled when the hands at his hips tightened.

Ray loved knowing how to find the light switch, but took _pride_ in knowing how to light up the fuse box.

“Want me to fuck you, Ray?”

And there it was, the characteristic bluntness Ray would never admit he missed every night and day. Joel’s words were ragged with want, sly with intent and all-around _dirty_ , so Ray would’ve died before he refused, especially with how good his name sounded on his lips. “God _yes_ ,” he all but keened, though the affirmation came out as more of a cracked sob because of how rapidly it crossed his lips. He rolled his hips on Joel’s own, back and forth as Joel’s fingers wrapped around his hot flesh and smeared the sticky liquid he found there over his skin, and he couldn’t help the shameless whine that hummed from deep in his throat when Joel gave him languid strokes full of purpose.

“How about ‘til you ache?”

He shuddered when he heard the words blown hot against his hair, felt the slight curve of Joel’s smile move against his ear when he tugged on his dick again, determined for an answer.

“Might already be aching,” he breathed, willing steadiness into his quaking voice, “and you wouldn’t keep me waiting any longer, would you?”

Joel chuckled against his skin, kissing his cheek in a moment of tenderness before the cap of the lube clicked behind him and cold fingers pressed at his entrance. Ray flexed around him in a moment of abandoned control, fingers tightening where they rest on Joel’s skin, and the older man met the movement with a hiss.

“ _God_ , I missed you,” he murmured, burying his face in Ray’s neck once more when the younger lurched at the contact and rocked forward into it in no time. “Missed everything about you.” He breathed long breaths against Ray’s skin, whispering affections across flesh as he moved against him, and swallowed his gasps with open-mouthed kisses pressed soft to his lips.

And by the time he’d worked two fingers in, reducing the younger to whimpers and jerky tremors between swears, Ray couldn’t wait any longer between jolts of sensation reminding him how strongly he returned that sentiment.

“Fuck, Joel, _please_ ,” he gasped, pushing his hips back on Joel’s fingers insistently, “want you so bad, I can’t—I need it, need you, just _.._.” He dug his nails into a set of broad shoulders when Joel removed his fingers, and he could’ve rambled on for another six months about how desperately he craved the stretch, the fullness, the entire thing.

Would’ve, probably, if all his thoughts weren’t being filtered through the pulse throbbing in his dick and making focusing on anything that wasn’t the roll of Joel’s voice (and of course, the wordless vocals that accompanied it) extremely difficult.

Joel made a low noise in the back of his throat when Ray gripped him tight, hands shaking as his fingers slid down his cock. The older man jerked sharply when Ray brought his wrist up with a wicked smile, though, grip gliding across his flesh with ease. He grabbed at the Puerto Rican’s hips, evidently maintaining slight distaste at his lapse in control but hardly complaining at how good his fingers felt, no doubt. Good enough that whatever scolding had risen to his tongue left his lips in a long, low moan.

But he managed to pull Ray up from his lap so the younger stood on his knees in the chair, still clinging tight to Joel’s shoulders for balance, and batted his hand away long enough to pull it around his back. Ray sent him a quick glance for affirmation when his fingers wrapped around Joel’s length again, this time guiding it against his ass as his breath hitched, and he watched Joel the whole time. Watched while he lowered himself onto him, watched his eyes threaten to flicker shut when his head pushed against him, and watched his eyes very nearly roll back in his head when he took him all in one fluid movement. And it took him both every bit of willpower he had not to lose it right then and there.

When he opened his eyes, though, and his gaze met Ray’s own unerringly, a wave of tingling warmth went down Ray’s spine, because for all the time they’d spend in the haze of coital contact and shared body heat, this time was somehow different – or perhaps this was just the first time he’d noticed. Joel looked at him like he was the only one he wanted to see, and for someone who lived for an audience, Ray thought to himself with the flavor of something endearing, he _craved_ Joel’s eyes, craved the feeling he got when saw _himself_ reflected back in those pools of brown so dark that they only lit up when they glowed in the sun.

He ached for the physical attention that stemmed from the hands that held him, too; for the contact they initiated when Joel reached around him to pull him close, and for the shocked and entirely unadulterated gasp that he pulled from the elder’s throat when he brushed Joel’s lips with his and rutted his hips against his own, feeling the familiar stretch and grinning when he felt Joel thrust up to meet him. 

“Oh, _fuck_ , I love the way you bend,” Joel groaned finally, hand sliding between their stomachs to stroke Ray’s dick in time with his rocking against Joel’s pelvic bone. A tremor went through his body as he felt Ray tense around him at the contact, to which Ray smiled and rose up enough to drop himself down on his dick again, and Joel didn’t bother withholding a guttural moan before breathing out “there’s really no one like you”, almost inaudibly, and it felt _fantastic_.

Joel thrust up again to break the gentle swiveling of Ray’s hips he’d initiated when he set out to fuck himself on his cock, not about to be reduced to a _complete_ mess – earning a heightened gasp from the younger, who tossed his head back and felt everything arch. Joel sped up his strokes as he moved, thrusting deep and hard and reveling in the way Ray moved above him, meeting every movement with one of his own like he had in the routine, and it didn’t take long before Ray was clinging to him desperately and warbling away in his ear encouragement to spend himself.

“Joel, _Joel_ , so close—“ He gasped sharply as he felt release approaching fast, pooling in his spine and threatening to take him immediately at the sight of Joel losing his composure beneath him. It took one, two more thrusts and a string of loving words whispered against his skin before he came in Joel’s grip, his name on his lips as he slicked both their stomachs. Joel pulled him against him tightly not too long after and buried positively fervid moans into his neck (of volumes Ray had never heard on him before, he was more than delighted to note), keeping his grip on the younger’s cock and milking him through the rest of his orgasm until he lay pliant and contentedly hypersensitive in his arms.

They waited until their breathing evened out to speak, hanging pleasantly in the warmth of the afterglow and smiling at the way their chests rose and fell together after a few initial, staggered gasps to catch their breath. Joel let his fingers drag idly up and down Ray’s sides, languidly tracing the dips and curves of his ribs and moving to count the ridges on his spine, and Ray was more than happy to let him shower him in the gentlest of kisses for the better part of what had to be an hour, perhaps even more. He’d missed the entirely rapt gaze, and he’d missed the lips, but more than anything, he’d missed the feel of his touch and the warmth of his smile. It may have been reckless to call it all his own, but the more they eyed each other, the more of the shared company Ray found himself craving once more.

In fact, the only time Joel glanced away was when he heard rapid footsteps through the corridor outside, escalating until there was a figure outside his door. It swung open before Joel had time to react, revealing a very angry Burnie with a stack of papers wielded threateningly in his hand as he flew into the room.

“Alright, Joel,” he growled, stepping into the office with a long stride and brandishing the stack, “we need to talk if you’re not looking to get prosecuted, I’m—”

He came to a screeching halt, however, once he got an eyeful of the sight before him. Ray was still spread across Joel’s legs, whose hands were at rest on either side of the roosted man’s hips, and the clothes strewn about the room certainly weren’t helping. Ray looked horrified, glancing quickly from one to the other; from Burnie, who was sporting a bewildered expression and looking white as a sheet in fantastic contrast to Joel’s calm and relatively collected demeanor strung up with a lazy smile.

In fact, to his mild surprise, _Joel_ was the one that finally broke the silence, and Ray wanted to melt into the carpet when the older man looked right at Burnie, despite being half-clothed and in a more than compromising position, and fired off in characteristic form.

“Doesn’t anyone knock anymore?”

Burnie was gaping, too surprised and confused to do much but open and close his mouth for a good thirty seconds while Joel snickered. But when he managed to string together some coherency, he had the full attention of both the men in question.

“What the _fuck_ is going on?” He faltered briefly, allowing enough time for Joel’s fingers to reach behind his chair and swipe a hoodie to wrap around Ray’s waist. Burnie looked at the two of them, lingering on Joel for a minute before putting a hand to his temple with a sigh. “Fuck, talk about the Ghost of Christmas Past. Did I do something to deserve this? Because whatever it was, _god_ , do I regret so, so hard.” He chewed on his lip, combing his brain for words as his brow knit.

“Better question,” Joel interjected, mildly annoyed tone beginning to seep into his voice, “why the hell are you in my office?”

There was venom in Burnie’s voice, but most of its bite was negated by how comically shocked he looked. “I was going to ask why _you_ ,” pointing a lone, shaky finger at Joel, who looked back as calmly as he could muster, “abstained from scoring Ray’s program.” He ran a hand through his hair, bringing it to rest on his jaw with a long, traumatized sigh. “Apparently my question answered itself.”

“You’re his coach?” Joel blinked once, twice, taking time to taste the words in his mouth. “That explains a lot.”

Ray finally raised his hand to chime in, offering a very confused “um, so you two know each other?” as the men paused, turning to look at him, then each other.

“ _Yeah_ ,” Burnie grit out exasperatedly as Joel sent tired eyes toward the ceiling, “we know each other. We skated the same circuit, competed together when we were younger.”

“Hated each other,” Joel added with a burst of laughter. “Mostly him hating me, though.”

And Ray made a noise of agreement before ruffling the older’s hair. “Seems to be a trend.”

Burnie was looking very green at this point, and Ray couldn’t help lapsing into a fit of giggles, too. “Yeah, okay, I think I’m gonna go. I’d rather avoid repeating breakfast.” He slipped back to the entryway carefully, turning when he reached the doorframe and assuming a menacing demeanor once more.

“Be responsible,” he hissed, pointing the threatening finger from before at Joel, who was positively dripping in his habitually smug mien, before turning to Ray and offering up his best attempt at not letting his gaze linger too long. “We’ll be in touch, we’ve got practice to start up,” he sighed, allowing sincerity to tug at his lips for a moment before ducking out the door a little quicker than he came in.

“Should’ve told him I’ve been scoring your program night after night,” Joel said with a snicker as his eyes followed Burnie out the door, bursting into a fit of laughter when Ray playfully whacked his shoulder. When the door swung shut, the combined laughter of the two left remaining lasted for a good while. Their hysterics finally subsided once Ray wrapped his arms around Joel’s neck and rested his head on the older man’s shoulder, contented sigh escaping past his lips.

“Tired?” Joel asked softly, fingers trailing up his side and rubbing familiar circles into his back. The younger nodded, breathing an agreement into his skin and reveling in how relaxed Joel felt. It was a refreshing departure from recent events, and it felt fantastic.

Just like how relaxed he _himself_ felt, come to think of it. The kind of relaxed that felt like he was floating in the ocean beneath a cloudless sky.

“I owe you dinner, after all. How does home cooking sound?”

Turning back to Joel, Ray lifted a brow in confusion, sending a thumb toward a double-digit morning indicator on the nearby clock. “Dinner is half a day away, but I could go for a nap.”

Joel smiled his knowing, crooked grin, the one Ray was growing fonder of with every new instance.

“Well, I figured I’d wake you up to it tonight, if you were interested.”

Of course, Ray agreed with no veiled enthusiasm.

And as he looked at Joel – a pastime in which he frequently indulged during the drive, on the way up his steps, and by the time they were ensnared in Joel’s sheets – he thought about how their eyes were drooping and their thoughts were filled with helium from the dark that had quickly bloomed to dawn, which was now mid-day and about as sure as the sun was to hang in the same place; thoughts about how much he’d missed Joel’s bed, less for the insinuation of the bedroom, but rather, for the tangle of limbs and the shared breaths instead. How he’d missed Joel’s intensity, his ability to light up the mundane, his tendency to make Ray breathe deep instead of hard.

The fact that the laces of their skates were tangled together by the door was just icing on the fucking cake, and it was absolutely, positively perfect. The perfect ending of all the characteristics of someone so _right_ that he’d have to start frantically flipping through grammar books to find the words to tell him appropriately. Performances, no, _narrations_ of the heart were the scariest to begin, after all.

For now, though, it could wait.

So as he lay there, he couldn’t help but smile into Joel’s skin at the way he still felt so vulnerable, so dwarfed in the presence of this creature amounting to far more than skin and bones who lay next to him. His breaths synced up with his own, and even after Ray had realized who he was, he came to find that the reason had nothing to do with the rink. And that realization in itself was enough to make his heart swell like none other.

Funny that the thing they enjoyed as much as each other’s company was what had brought them together in the first place, wasn’t it?

He pressed his nose against the sensitive skin of the older man’s neck as he shifted closer, prodding at his side to which Joel answered with a sleepy ‘mm?’ hummed in confusion.

At that moment, things were as they were – exactly what Ray wanted, and could’ve ever asked for – and to his intrigue, _Joel_ of all people was starting to convince Ray that something even more satisfying than perfection might exist, and it was close enough for him to touch.

An arm snaked around Ray, pulling him close enough to rest his forehead against Joel’s own. He could make out his features in the dark of the room, curtains pulled closed to keep out the light of the day, and the air blowing softly around them to highlight the sounds of their breaths was warm. He was mature enough to know when to speak, but realistic enough to know himself, knew he’d try to put effort into remembering every detail.

Smitten enough to know the only detail that mattered was his company.

As if on cue, Joel took in a breath and let it out in a soft statement that, in its brevity, washed over Ray like wind and summer rain.

“Love you, Ray.”

He opened his mouth to reply, to his credit, only to have the curve to his lips place him into stunned silence. He’d always figured it would hit him when he wasn’t ready, coming at him out of the dark and leaving him gasping for air, but instead, as he realized his smile had split into a grin, it was the kiss after the curtain fell alongside a bouquet of flowers that it always had been.

And as the man beside him finally cracked an eye open, sleepy smile betraying his attempt at feigning slumber, Ray knew all that was left after taking the jump was the comfort in knowing where he’d fall.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been a hell of a ride. Thank you so much for sticking with this story. :)


	12. in the light of the dawn (epilogue)

Joel was half-asleep, submerged in a dream into which he’d only dipped his mind for what seemed like a minute when the echo of a familiar, insistent voice pervaded the room. The air was warm, despite a fan that blew softly in the back, and the sheets smelled… unfamiliar.

Once the voice called his name, to his mild discontent of being roused, though, he could only grasp at the tails of sleep like a departing train.

“Joel.”

“Mm?”

“Joel, get up, we have to go.”

“Mm, anything you want, just give me a minute.”

“ _Joel_.”

Joel smiled into his pillow.

“Ray.”

“We have to  _go_.”

“Only things we  _have_  to do are die and pay taxes.”

He could hear the exhaustion in Ray’s voice. Or maybe it was exasperation, he couldn’t be sure.  _Either way, Ray certainly wore it best,_ he noted with a smirk he knew the other couldn’t see.

“So help me  _god_ , if you don’t get out of bed, I’ll leave you here and you can watch the event when it hits public broadcast.”

Joel finally cracked an eye open at that, rolling over onto his back to cast a look at the source of the voice. Ray stood silhouetted against the soft glow of the morning light, streaming through the split in the curtains, with his hands on his hips. Such an image of serene dimness didn’t last long, though, as the moment Ray noticed his movement, he tore the curtains back, revealing the blinding sun reflecting off the sheen of a glittering sea. A scene that Joel would’ve likely appreciated more a little later in the day, at that.

With a groan, he pulled the pillow from beneath his head and promptly smothered himself with it, offering a low noise of discontentment when Ray snorted in reply.

He heard feet shuffle across the floor, and felt the bed dip under the younger’s weight. He wasn’t expecting the ice-cold fingers that slid beneath his shirt and against his ribs, though, and the rumble of laughter in Ray’s chest when he shot back on reflex, groaning his discontent.

“Practice starts in an hour, babe. I promise we’ll sleep better tonight.”

Something stirred in Joel’s memory as wakefulness began to seep into his mind, bringing back images of the flight the day before, of stumbling through the airport terminal in search of the baggage claim and trying to hail a cab armed with only Google Translate, two hours of sleep cumulative from the red-eye, and a snickering boyfriend.

He sighed a heavy sigh of defeat, swinging his legs over the side of the mattress and rubbing the sleep from his eyes. Ray was on his feet in a flash, standing before him and tugging at his hand the moment it left the circles beneath the older’s eyes.

“Come on, if we leave now, we can get coffee in you.”

Joel cracked a smile, meeting Ray’s anxious gaze with a tiredly grateful one of his own.

“How do you say ‘thank you’ in Korean?”

\--

By the time they’d gotten to the rink, Ray was fidgeting with the zipper pull his coat, and Joel was awake enough to annoy him into calming down. The cab dropped them off at a private entrance, Joel leading the way with Ray close in tow once they made it out, and after pushing past waves of reporters and photographers, they found themselves at a security checkpoint bustling with noise and sound. It was strangely nostalgic for Joel, but when he glanced at Ray, he saw the apprehension in his eyes, flitting from face to sign to absorb everything.

It was inevitable that Burnie, with impeccable timing as always, would barge in on the moment, approaching like an angry bull and equally as stressed.

“Scram, Joel,” he said with an exaggerated scowl upon reaching the two, waving him off before handing Ray a program and a bottle. But Joel simply side-stepped the maneuver, moving behind Ray to read over his shoulder when Burnie turned the other way to speak to one of the coordinators, rapid Korean coming over the stadium’s loudspeakers as Ray gripped his page so tight his knuckles turned white.

“Hey,” he started, catching Ray’s wrist and pulling him back as soon as Burnie was out of arm’s reach. “Hey, look at me.”

Ray’s eyes met his own, and Joel watched him swallow down his nerves when he spoke. He remembered what it felt like, to have your stomach in knots so much that your throat closed up, oxygen no welcome relief, but every breath instead pressing harder on your lungs until they threaten to give out.

“It’s sort of funny,” Ray said finally- maybe  _sighed_ , finally, biting at his lip as he pulled a hand through his hair. “This is going to be televised all over the world, right? Like, millions of people are gonna be watching live, and hell, it’s going to be recorded for later, but…” He trailed off, shaking his head with a harsh laugh. “Nah, never mind, it’s... never mind.” He tried to pull his hand free to move away, but Joel laced his fingers with his, pulling him close and letting their foreheads touch.

“Scared?”

Ray swallowed again, closing his eyes.

“Might be.”

Joel thought for a moment, “I, uh, feel like I’d be shooting you in the foot if I suggested picturing the judges in their underwear.”

Ray’s expression split into a grin when he laughed at the words, delighted and sincere, and Joel squeezed his shoulder with a smile.

He looked at Joel with light in his eyes and color in his cheeks.

“Only you, dude.”

Joel put his hands up in mock-defense, snickering. “I know, I know, we’ve got weird-ass circumstances, but seriously, you should’ve learned to expect—”

“No,” Ray continued, hands at the dip of Joel’s spine as he pulled him close, “not that.” He was looking up at him with a gaze that burned like fire, held his own with a grip he’d always maintained with a startling level of tenacity. Joel figured it was cheesy to tell him he took his breath away, and he’d probably save it for when he was drunk, but those eyes made him want to tell Ray he felt like he was caught in a rainstorm because he felt them everywhere, not to mention long after they’d gone.

And even if he’d wanted to, he couldn’t look away.

“Meant that knowing you’re here is sort of what’s keeping me grounded. You keep me focused.” Ray tipped his head to the side, looking up at Joel with a sparkle in his eyes. “Kind of ironic, all things considered.”

And god, it really was.

Joel remembered the long afternoons that turned into evenings and early mornings they’d spent at the rink, the three of them together, Ray on the ice while he and Burnie kept watch. Burnie had begrudgingly asked Joel to copilot their training for the last few months, since they’d decided Ray’s break-out routine for the event had to be equally flashy as it was memorable, and the routine they’d chosen was one Joel had medaled with years before (which was an ego boost for the older that Burnie sorely regretted). They had practiced for months together, ensuring the skater hit every note and nailed every axel, and occasionally frustrated the poor kid to the point of rendering himself immobile, but the result was well worth the effort and occasional screaming match. The two of them had looked to each other and sneered when Ray deemed the two, amongst other choice words, ‘the coaches from hell’.

By the time they’d perfected it, Joel was astonished Ray still let him anywhere near his bed.

Hell, he could only wish he were poetic enough to tell him how impressed he was by the time their work with him was done, at least, in more than a nod and a smile once the music finished. How else would he forsake bias? He’d remembered thinking it at the beginning, the  _very_ beginning, when he lay awake next to Ray wondering desperately how he could tell him politely that  _hey, I think I’m falling in love with you,_ or at least how to be diplomatic enough so as to not scare the kid away with the notion that he was a total disaster’s object of affection.

And now, perhaps if he really were that poetic, he could tell Ray that he’d steal the spotlight just like he’d stolen his breath all that time ago.

A throat was cleared, and a familiar face appeared to their left, diverting both sets of eyes.

“Practice group is up soon, Ray.”

Burnie was getting impatient, Joel could tell; he was doing that stare-off thing he was so fond of. Apparently in all the years they’d known each other, no one else had the heart to tell him that it made him look like a bird with its chest puffed out.

Ray looked one to the other, crooked, nervous smile crossing his lips before he murmured ‘have to go, I have to go’ into the space left between them. Joel nodded, glancing at Burnie before shifting his gaze back to Ray.

“A2, row—”

“Row F, seat two, I  _know_ , fuckhead, you always sit in the same place.” Ray’s grin was sincere, and Joel figured he’d let him win, just this once.

“Alright, alright, I’m leaving.” He pinched Ray’s cheek impishly, dodging the whack the younger sent toward his left shoulder. Before he could protest further, Joel pulled him into a kiss that caught him between breaths, smiling against his lips before he moved back. “Go get ‘em,” he murmured, biting back the grin from the swell in his chest as he pushed him toward the gate.

\--

When Joel lifted his eyes from the program to see who had prodded at his knees, he was met with a beaming Jack and Caiti. He lifted his legs from where they sat on the seat in front of him to allow Caiti to pass, lowering them again with an innocent look when Jack tried to get past.

“Come on, save some room, old man.” Jack rolled his eyes as he claimed the seat next to Joel with a good-natured huff, the older man meeting it with with a silent smirk.

“You couldn’t look happier,” Caiti said, nudging Joel as she moved past him in the row of seats. He moved his hands from where his fingers had steepled on his nose, nodding as if he were coming out of a daze.

“It feels weird being here, like,  _here_ ,” nodding to the folding seats around his own, “but it’s a good weird.” Joel lowered his finger to point at the rink, squinting at the bluish hue cast upon the ice by the lights. “Mostly remnant nerves from  _that_  all those years ago, and then his on top of those, by proxy.”

Turning to Joel, she beamed.  “I’m thrilled for you two, both being here and all. Aside from the nerves, you’re both really in your element.” She took the seat to his right, Jack to his left, looking out over the rink with anticipation. Officials flitted about below, and Joel was almost startled at how suddenly thrilled he was to be so far away from the action, for once.

Jack moved in close and lowered his voice as the lights finally dimmed, as if he had a secret to tell.

“Think he’s going to medal?”

Joel’s shoulders rose and fell, but his expression betrayed him.

“Can’t wait to find out.”

He didn’t say a word more, his smile only growing into a grin.

\--

Joel babbled through the extent of the opening announcements and all the time between events, but once the lights were lowered for Ray’s routine, he fell uncharacteristically silent, gaze fixed on the ice. Jack told him later he was muttering under his breath, but he was on the edge of his seat from start to finish, brow furrowed stiff, and by the time Ray landed his final axel, his lips had split into a wide, knowing smile.

He was out of the row, flying down the stairs, and headed for the lower level doors by the time the final note had finished echoing across the rink, and Jack made sure to inform Ray later that Joel had technically been the first one on his feet for the thundering standing ovation.

\--

“I thought you were staying in your seat?” There was laughter in Ray’s voice, heightened from the anxious nerves and exhilaration from the performance, and Joel was thrilled to see it in his eyes as he bounded up to him after he stepped off the ice.  

“I  _know_ , I just…  _god_ , you were great, and I wanted to be here.”

Burnie, from behind them, hissed a terse ‘you’re here as a favor, Joel, and I swear to Christ, I’m going to gut you if you don’t shut _up’_ , pointing to the screen hanging above them that flickered with an official’s signal that the points had been tallied for the round.

Joel met the coach’s gaze for a moment, sharing a glance that shifted to a crooked smile before either had the chance to look away.

The younger’s eyes were locked on the screen. 

\--

Ray’s hands would’ve clapped to his mouth when they announced the gold medalist for the 2018 Winter Olympics if Joel hadn’t pulled him into a kiss, beating him there. And somehow, as Joel sent him off to mount the podium amidst flashing cameras and beaming coaches, he realized the greatest spoils were the ones waiting for him when he stepped off the ice.


End file.
